


The Best Laid Plans Of Cats And Witchers

by Adertily



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: A little angst, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Accidental three year old acquisition i suppose, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Found Family, Pets, Romance, Three Year Old Ciri, Yen's cat introduces them, Yeralt, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-19 09:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 42,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22308964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adertily/pseuds/Adertily
Summary: This is a modern au where Yennefer and Geralt live in the same apartment building, but have not met - Yen’s cat helps with an introduction.A few months pass and Geralt is left as guardian to a three-year-old Ciri, chaos ensues as they try to work out how to raise her together. Idk, it's adorable and very found family heavy.I would say its more based on the show than the games/books. Though I have read/played all of them, the show was my main inspiration to write.Based on a prompt from @romkole on tumblr that I ran with.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 324
Kudos: 728





	1. Chapter 1

It started with a cat. 

It was not Geralt’s cat, though he had no particular dislike for the creatures he’d found they tended to have a dislike towards _him_. And yet, here one was, speckles of ruffled black and ginger sat outside his window sill on the frozen, steel grating of the fire escape. Staring at him. 

_Where did you come from?_

He wouldn’t have let it inside - after all, it probably belonged to _someone_ , and he didn’t imagine they’d be too happy for him to be commandeering their cat, and there was the added sin that he was certain pets weren’t even allowed in the building. But it was cold outside. The blizzard had thrown the city into white, the very same reason he’d opted to work from home rather than in the office. It was technically the weekend, but Geralt had either forgotten or didn’t care - Vesemir had always cautioned the younger lawyer’s tendency to get lost in a case. It was just a shame that going after heartless pricks didn’t pay any better. 

The cat must have meowed, though Geralt could not hear it, the sound falling muffled against the misted glass - before the little thing shifted on its front legs. Paws padding against the ground. A gesture that, even to Geralt, was understood as friendly.

So he’d sighed, walked over, and slid open the window.

The noise of purring became apparent the moment he’d hitched it open. The cat happily making its way into the warmth of the room, greeting Geralt’s shin with its forehead before trotting over to the heater and unceremoniously curling itself up underneath it. 

He closed the window again before any more flecks of snow could make themselves welcome in his apartment too. 

* * *

Buried into the stacks of files and paperwork sprawled over his desk, he’d almost forgotten he even had a houseguest napping on the floor of his living room. Until he heard the knocking on the door. 

“Hi,” A woman greeted him, slightly breathless. Her eyes flickering over him for a moment before she seemed to compose herself. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen a cat around at all?” 

Her tone almost sounded defeated as if she’d already received for too many indignant “no’s” to that question, yet at the same time feisty and ready to brush off any illegal pet-keeping allegations at a moment's notice. He almost smiled. 

"A cat?" He repeated back, his mind somehow dancing around the answer that should have been obvious. Distracted, as his gaze wandered over the way her eyes seem to light up almost purple when the glow of the hallway caught over them just right, and the miles of dark, wavy hair that appeared to have been tied up in a rush, but that did nothing at all to prevent her looking dazzlingly beautiful. She was, he noted, also considerably smaller than he was. But most people were.

“Yes, a cat.” She folded her arms, her forehead shifting. And it became immediately obvious to Geralt that his staring wasn’t nearly as subtle as he’d been hoping. 

“Actually, yeah.” He cleared his throat, nodding. “Fluffy little calico? She invited herself in and has been curled up next to my heater for hours.” 

He gestured over his shoulder into the apartment, but the dark-haired woman made no move to step through despite being visible relieved by his answer. Which, he reminded himself, was perfectly understandable. Cats were, even at the best of times, not the most sensible creatures, and walking defenseless into a strange man’s home seemed to be a habit her owner did not share. 

“I’ll go get her.” He offered. 

She gaped for a second as if about to protest. Before her jaw shut again and he disappeared around the corner. 

* * *

He had expected some sort of resistance - that his hands would be left in tatters of red claw marks at his attempt to pick up the ball of fur from where she’d been so happily dozing. Waking cats had never gone particularly well for him in the past. But perhaps there was a reason Eskel’s half-feral little thing had been given the name Scorpion in the first place.

He was surprised when she didn’t. Turning limp as noodles in his arms as she gave him what could only be described as puppy-dog eyes. Geralt wasn’t even aware cats could do that. 

The woman still standing in his doorway seemed even more shocked at the cat's complacency than he was. Taking the few steps inside before scooping the purring bundle into her own arms. 

“Thank you,” She said, burying her nose into the cat's fur for a few moments. “The little rascal slipped out of my window while I was trying to fix the latch. She’d disappeared out of sight by the time I’d managed to pry it open enough to fit myself through. And I was so worried when the storm started - I.” She took a breath. “Thank you.” 

“It’s no problem, she was a very polite little house guest.” Geralt gave a small smile, he hoped it didn’t look creepy. 

He took her smile in return as confirmation that it wasn’t. Watching as she shifted the cat's weight into one arm before holding out her hand. 

“My name’s Yennefer.” 

He took it, trying not to get caught up in the way her palm seemed to become almost entirely engulfed within his own. “Geralt.” 

“Nice to meet you, Geralt.” 

_Were her cheeks turning pink or was that just the bad lighting?_

He let his hand linger for what was probably a moment too long. Before her own pulled away to catch the cat as it wriggled slightly. 

“I should probably get Cally back home now.” 

“Cally?” He raised an eyebrow.

“It’s short for Calanthe,” She shook her head dismissively. “Long story.” 

Geralt nodded politely. “Well, it was nice to meet you too.” Though a small part of him didn’t want either of them to leave just yet. Yennefer had already made a step towards the door when a thought occurred to him. 

“Did you manage to fix your window in the end?” He asked.

She turned back towards him. Her head shaking slowly as she spoke. “Honestly, I spent all day running around trying to find this asshole.” 

He let out a soft laugh. “I could help you,” He offered, slightly nervous, though the feeling felt unusual in his veins. “I mean, if they’re anything like mine - something seems to break every other week around here, I got pretty good at _unbreaking_ things by now.” 

A smile cracked through her face. 

He could almost see her visibly deliberating for a long moment as he watched, waited. 

“Okay...” She agreed finally. “If - If you really don’t mind?” 

He tried to ignore the skipping in his chest that his searching for an excuse to see her again had worked. “Not at all.”


	2. Chapter 2

Geralt soon learned that Yennefer’s apartment was only two floors below his. But, naturally, the elevator was broken.

They fell into easy conversation as they walked, which almost felt strange to Geralt - he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so at ease around someone he barely knew. Yennefer seemed perfectly happy to be leading the conversation, explaining how she’d moved in three months ago to be closer to work, how she’d smuggled Cally inside with the help of a friend who lived on the top floor. 

Until she suddenly stopped talking, her feet freezing for a moment as a figure emerged into the hallway. Geralt frowned as she nudged him to keep walking, noticing how she fell back slightly as they approached the stranger, her arms repositioning around the cat and using Geralt as a human shield.

It took him a moment to realise it was Cally she was hiding, not herself. As he glanced back to find that she’d somehow, remarkably, managed to stuff the cat up inside the front of her hoodie, continuing to walk in a failed attempt to look as inconspicuous as possible. Geralt wasn’t sure the wriggling was helping. Nore the soft meow the cat gave in protest. 

The stranger passed by with a friendly nod to the both of them before his eyes fell on Yen and his expression melted into puzzlement. 

But she’d already found her door and was pushing Geralt through a moment later. As he tried not to laugh.

It was a nice apartment. Unremarkably different in size and shape to his own, and with the same delightful snow-covered view of the building that sat opposite the alleyway that he’d spent the last two years looking out on. He’d given pet names to his favourite bricks - the ones that were fractured and broken and that really should have labelled the whole structure as a public hazard. 

He looked around to find Yen had filled the small space with colour and decorations and sentimental things that gave it a cozy feel that his own was bitterly missing - it felt warm. And it smelled nice. Which was so much better than the damp he was used to. Something sweet and floral, though he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly.

She locked the door behind them, setting Cally free on the ground, the feline wasting no time in seeking out what remains of the breakfast she’d abandoned earlier that morning, as she darted into the kitchen.

“You can’t tell anyone I have her.” Yennefer insisted, bringing his attention back towards her. 

Geralt raised his hands in surrender. “I wouldn’t dare.” 

She nodded, content that her secret was safe - but she still found her hands shuffling with themselves for a while. 

She didn’t fully understand why she’d suddenly decided to trust him, though she accepted it was largely to do with the cat who had, up until now, always been so grouchy and crude to the men she brought home. Trusting Cally’s instincts was a lesson that had taken a while. Still, there was an uncertainty in her mind now that she’d invited him to step inside her home. 

“Would you like a drink?” She offered, finally. 

He smiled softly before replying, though he’d been careful not to make it obviously directed at her in particular, as his eyes continued around the room in search of the reason he’d come. “Coffee would be great, if you have any.” 

She nodded, before following her cat into a side room as Geralt made his way over to what he assumed was the culprit based on the tools that had been strewn over the coffee table pushed up against the wall underneath the window. Listening to the sound of a hissing kettle as he knelt and inspected the cold metal of the latch with his hands, almost jumping when it fell off completely and clattered against the wood of the table.

“Ah, so you’ve discovered the problem.” He heard Yennefer approach behind him. “Don’t worry, you didn’t make it any worse than it was already,” 

She sat herself down next to where he was kneeling, presenting the warm mug to him. Geralt’s eyes flickering down to the glass of red wine in her other hand as she did so.

“Don’t judge,” She told him, taking a small sip. “I spent most of the day with the nagging thought that my incredibly pampered, very-much-indoor cat might be stuck outside somewhere during a snowstorm.” 

Geralt didn’t fight off his fond smile this time.

* * *

“You’re not very talkative are you?” Yennefer noted; the conversation had turned quiet after a while. But comfortable.

“Sorry,” Geralt said, unsure what there was to even be talking about, and fully aware that was only proving her point.

“It wasn’t a complaint.” She assured him, downing the last of her wine. “Talking is overrated most of the time anyway.”

She disappeared after a few minutes of inquisitively watching his tinkering, her gaze eventually drawn up to the dark-grey sky that only seemed to be getting darker, colder. As Geralt realised he’d wasted another whole day stuck at his desk. He had to stop doing that. 

A hint of relief settling in his veins when she’d stopped watching his so closely and disappeared back into the kitchen. He wasn’t sure if it was curiosity or scrutiny. But she’d seemed content to just observe, though he was half certain it wasn’t just his hands she’d been watching. Yet Geralt still found himself missing her company beside him after she’d gone. 

He had to shake the thought from his head. 

Cally joined him a few minutes later, the noise of the drill no longer keeping her to the other side of the room, as she found a game in batting the collection of tools off the table onto the floor. The rug was muffling the sound, but he still hoped it wasn’t bothering the neighbours below. 

He checked it after he’d finished, locking the window firmly closed and making sure it didn’t budge. Cally seemed satisfied, and he decided that was probably all the approval he needed. Before he went in search of Yennefer to let her know he was done.

He found her in the kitchen, the table set and a warm dish of something that was making his mouth water held in between her oven mitt covered hands. 

“It’s, uh -” He stuttered, as he watched her place the dish down on a wooden trivet. _That seemed like far too much food for one human being to eat._ “Your window is all sorted.” 

“Oh!” She almost looked sheepish, he thought, as if she’d only just noticed the arrangement of food herself. “Dinner?” She offered cautiously. “As a thank you?” 

“How did you even have time?” He asked, confusion clear on his face - it was almost pitch black outside but he hadn’t been working _that_ long, had he?

“I had it pre-prepared.” She explained. “It had been sitting in my freezer for a special occasion, and I owe you for looking after Cally today, and for your help with the window and I just thought you might be hungry and -”

“Yen,” He interrupted, trying to stop the smile from taking over his face completely.

“Yeah?”

It wasn’t working very well. “I’d love to.”

* * *

Geralt hadn’t had a homemade meal in what felt like far too long. He had to stop himself from making near explicit noises as he ate, realising by the state of his overly enthusiastic appetite that he must have forgotten to eat lunch. Again. 

Yennefer didn’t seem to mind though. 

“So,” She began, grinning. “I’m assuming you don’t go around fixing people’s things for a living?” 

“No. That’s just more of a hobby” He laughed softly. “I’m actually a lawyer.”

She seemed genuinely taken aback by that. “A lawyer? I thought lawyers were supposed to be rich. What are you doing stuck in this hell hole?” She gestured to the building around them to emphasize her point. And, as if one cue, the lights decided to flicker the room into darkness before they kicked back to life a few seconds later. 

“Honestly, the money’s why I chose to study it in the first place,” He shrugged. “But it’s not what made me want to stay.”

She waited patiently for him to elaborate. 

“I started off in family law - but then a group of guys I’d met in college had this _brilliant_ idea to start up a pro bono based agency, to help people who really, actually, need it,” He explained. “I agreed to join. And then we all got so caught up in everything that it became difficult to leave. Four years later and one of my colleagues likes to joke that most charity workers make more money than we do. But we get by alright.” 

When his eyes found hers again she had a look on her face that he couldn’t quite place. Watching him carefully.

“What about you?” He promoted, hoping he didn’t have something stuck between his teeth. 

“Currently,” She began after picking at her food for a minute. “I’m a lab technician for that I.V.F clinic a few blocks away. I’d like to become a proper embryologist eventually though.” 

Geralt’s forehead creased. “What’s an embryologist?”

“Its, uh -” She started. “It’s basically the more official, higher up version of what I’m currently doing. Lots of sciency, technical, boring stuff. It requires more of an education that I have at the moment, however.” 

The room suddenly plunged into darkness. An electrical snap ricocheted from the bulb overhead, followed by every light in the apartment dying all at once. And the sound of a startled meow from the living room a moment later.

“Uh, did my cat just cause a power cut?” 

“I think the building is perfectly capable of doing that all on its own.” Geralt joked, fishing his phone from his pocket and turning on the torch. “Do you happen to have any candles?”

“I have a few.” 

* * *

Yennefer, it turned out, either had an overwhelming fondness for candles or had no idea what the expression ‘a few’ was actually supposed to mean to most sane people. She moved Cally to the bedroom for safety, before setting up the flicker of candlelight from every nook and cranny of the living room. 

Dinner was relocated to the sofa. Though the tiny flames seemed to have innocently and involuntarily caused a noticeable shift in the mood. Geralt couldn’t help noticing when Yen returned with another glass of wine. And he had to remind himself that this was probably _not_ a good idea. There wasn’t a romantic interaction of his in existence that hadn’t ended in a mess. And getting involved with someone who lived in his building seemed foolish at best. He had no idea if it was at all her intention. But the space between them was beginning to feel like far too much. 

So he decided it was probably time to leave. Clearing his throat before he spoke. “Thank you for dinner Yen, but I should probably let you get back to your evening.” 

“Oh,” She said quietly. 

“Will you be okay without the, uh -” He pointed towards the still very-much-dead light above them.

“Electricity?” She raised an eyebrow playfully. “Thank you for your heroics Geralt, for both me and Cally. But I think I can fend for myself in the dark.” The smile peeking through her expression suggesting the indignation in her tone was mostly just in jest. So he smiled back.

And then he politely said goodbye. Though he hadn’t really wanted to. Walking in darkness back towards his own apartment, fumbling with his keys to open the door leading to a room that was as cold and empty as he’d left it. 

A part of his mind wondering, if he was ever going to have an excuse to see her again. 

It would take her only three days to find one.


	3. Chapter 3

It was the next morning when he realized the still pitifully short contact list on his phone had a new addition. He wasn’t sure at what point she'd managed to steal the device to tap it in, but the title of 'crazy cat lady from downstairs’ made him fight off a smile. 

But the phone was empty, bar Lambert's message reminding Geralt to bring in the document he'd been reading over for homework. 

The silence remained.

Until Wednesday evening greeted him with a familiar rushed knocking at the door, a slightly out of breath dark heard woman and the sound of a bothered cat coming from the bottom of a basket of 'laundry'. 

"I need your help," Yennefer declared, pushing past him with the basket on her hip into the room without so much as a hello. "God knows how it happened, but a rumour started circulating that _somebody_ on my floor was harbouring a certain type of fur-covered contraband.”

“Hmm. Truly the biggest mystery of our generation.” He joked dryly, as he followed her further into the apartment.

“Indeed.” Yen set the basket down on the floor of his living room. “Do you mind watching her for a few hours until the inspection is over? I would’ve asked Triss but she’s on a late shift.” 

“Who’s Triss?”

“My friend,” Yen replied. “I told you about her, didn’t I? Lives on the top floor?” 

“Oh,” It took him a moment to realise he’d not answered her first question - it seemed like such a simple decision that it scarcely even needed saying. “Of course, I don’t mind watching her for a few hours.” 

“Great, thank you!” 

And then she’d disappear from his apartment in a whirlwind once again. As Calanthe stuck her head through the pile of blankets heaped on top of her and shared a look with Geralt. 

“Is she always like this?” He asked.

Cally didn’t answer, though she did blink at him, and Geralt accepted that was probably as much of an affirmation as he was going to get, as he sighed and returned to the couch. 

* * *

It was dark again when Yen returned. He’d been poking around the kitchen, stomach growling, and Cally close at his heels as he looked for something they could both feasible eat. _Could cats have cheese?_ She seemed to think so, but Geralt decided against trusting the judgment of a creature that had decided to partake on her first outdoor adventure during a blizzard. Cally, however, didn’t appear fond of that decision. 

Their heads both spun around when the knocking returned to the door, Geralt opening it to find Yen with yet another unexpected package held in her hands. 

“Food?” She offered, as he realised she held a tray of what most definitely looked like lasagne. 

* * *

It was strange having company. In a nice way. Sharing meals were such a distant concept to Geralt but he was beginning to learn what he’d been missing. Sitting alone with a half cold plate at his desk just wasn’t the same. And although he’d never been a fan of restaurants and diners, this was a middle ground he thought he could get overly used to. And it seemed Yen was in just as much need of someone to talk to - she didn’t seem to stop.

He gaped when she offered Cally a serving. Coming to the conclusion that Yennefer clearly didn’t share his worries over what counted as adequate for the cat's diet. But he kept his mouth shut. And Yen couldn’t help but notice the way Geralt’s eyes lit up in amusement.

The antsiness crept up on him - which was the only reason, he told himself, that he accepted the glass Yennerfer had poured after digging through his pathetic excuse of a wine pantry. Asking people to leave had never been one of his strong suits, and it was made even harder by the fact he had no actual desire to. _This won’t go well,_ the nagging voice at the back of his mind told him. Again.

It was Yen that made the decision. He wasn’t certain if he was more relieved or upset at her sudden declaration that she should be getting home, perhaps she’d noticed his mood. Or perhaps he’d just been reading her wrong. 

And then just like that his quiet life came back to him, left alone in a flat that he was sure usually didn’t feel so empty. 

* * *

It was Friday evening when a message chimed through on his phone - an announcement that Yennefer’s bedroom door had _tragically_ snapped off one of the hinges, and that, should he be available, she would ardently appreciate the help of his hands.

Though, when he went to inspect the damage, Geralt was certain it looked suspiciously like someone had kicked it in on purpose.

The original screws had bent, he noted, as she returned with two mugs of coffee a few minutes later. The only spares she had were flimsy and a miraculously awkward in size when paired to the screwdrivers he had on hand. 

“You know,” She began, passing him his mug. “I always thought those tiny flush hinges were a stupid choice for these doors - they’re heavy as lead.” She began digging through his toolbox. “Here, try the torx, it should stop the metal from stripping -”

Her eyes flashed wide for a mere second, almost unnoticeably, as if she’d had to catch her own tongue before she slowly, sheepishly, handed him the appliance in question.

Geralt raised an eyebrow. “Do you even actually need my help?” 

“Of course,” She insisted. “Who doesn’t need a big, strong, man around to fix all their shit.” 

The sarcasm was faint but even Geralt, in all his obliviousness, could pick up on it. He just rolled his eyes, and set back to work as Yen buried her grin in her coffee. 

* * *

She stopped looking for excuses after that. Subtilty turning brazen as she chose instead to simply text him the word ‘dinner?’ whenever she felt the need for company. Which would follow her arriving at his front door and either staying, or walking him downstairs back to her place.

He started helping with the cooking when she’d allow. But she’d just as often glare with amusement at his attempts.

Yen seemed to have decided they were ‘seeing’ each other. And there was truth to it, but in what sense Geralt was uncertain. He’d worked out she definitely didn’t have a boyfriend. A discovery that had sent him unexpectedly giddy for the few hours afterward, though he had done his best to hide it. But the feeling died pretty quickly when she’d let slip that the evenings spent with him were usually a consequence of her other friends being busy. He’d been too interested in staring at his plate to notice the way she visibly winced immediately after admitting that, biting her tongue too late. _You say the stupidest things sometimes Yen_ , she scolded herself. 

So, once the sky had turned dark and star-speckled, she’d made the decision - and it really hadn’t been a hard one, to take his hand, and candidly lead him into her bedroom. 

She hoped the bruise coloured marks they were painting on each other's skin with desperate and digging fingernails were enough of an admission, because with the warmth and weight of his body pressing her down into the mattress and the mouth against her neck that was making her eyes roll to the back of her head, words were suddenly becoming very, _very_ difficult.   
  



	4. Chapter 4

For once, the morning was warm. The gentle touch of the sun on Geralt’s face letting him know the day had long since started without them, but there was nothing glaring about the light beaming through the window. 

He woke to find Yennefer facing away from him, the slight distance caused by comfort more than anything he needed to worry about. Her breathing falling slow and even, her hair cascading in midnight waves down her back. His eyes following the curves before settling on the exposed patch of skin from where the bedding had gathered around her hip as she’d slept. Pausing, as his eyes traced along the unusual pattern he found there.

She was covered in flowers. White as snow against tanned skin as they followed the trail of a stem along the valley of her spine. His fingers reached out to explore. Observing how the leaves and petals curled from a central, rigid line that looked like it had been born from something sharper than the sting of an ink needle. 

He realised then that her breathing had shifted. The touch rousing her from sleep as she pulled the bedding back up around her, hiding the bare skin of her torso from his line of sight.

“Sorry,” He apologised softly, curiosity simmered by the realisation she probably hadn’t meant for him to see that. Whatever it was.

She almost looked sad, shy, when she rolled over to face him, which wasn’t the greeting he’d been hoping for. “I imagine you have questions.”

He shrugged. “They’re not important, if you don’t want to talk about it.” 

“No,” Yen sighed quietly. “No, it's okay. You can ask.”

He took her hand across the sheets, entwining her fingers with his to see if this moment of vulnerability was something she was actually comfortable with. She didn’t pull away. 

“Where did you get white-ink tattoos like that?” He asked. “The details are almost prodigious.” 

He watched as she smiled, an involuntary response to the fact of everything he could have asked _that_ had been his first question. “It was a friend actually, Philippa. I asked if she’d be able to do something beautiful but subtle to cover over the scar. I was more than impressed with the garden she bloomed on my back.”

Geralt waited, his eyes held on her own that seemed more keen to look upon their joined hands than back at him. He didn’t want to press. If she was going to offer him an explanation it was going to be entirely her choice to do so.

“I had scoliosis as a child - crooked spine.” She took a deep breath before she continued. “It was pretty bad and only got worse as I grew, the physical therapy seemed to do little to help, so when the doctors were content that I’d stopped growing, they cut open my back and fixed me with braces and pins.” 

Geralt squeezed her hand. Relieved that the contact encouraged a small smile to return to her face.

“The scar healed pretty well,” She told him, talking slow and quiet to match the tone of the morning. “But I’ve never really, um - Not many people have ever seen it before.” 

Her eyes finally met his, and the sincerity he discovered there couldn’t have found a rival in intimacy to anything they’d done last night. He let the emotions it created escape into a fond smile, one that he hoped was reassuring. 

“Not that it’s quite the same,” Geralt began lightly. “But did I ever tell you about the time my leg got kicked in by a horse?” 

“No,” Yen’s eyebrows raised slightly in amusement. “How did that happen?”

“I spent a few years on a ranch growing up. There was this one horse, Roach, stubborn as shit - probably more so than I was. Anyway, one of my assigned chores was to fill her water every morning, and I guess she spontaneously decided to use me as target practice one day. My tibia shattered in three places. I was on crutches for months, got me out of doing chores though.” 

Yen laughed gently. “Oh my god. What happened to the horse?”

“Nothing,” Geralt shook his head. “It had been my fault really, I accepted eventually. They even taught me to ride on her once I was given the all-clear by the doctors. We seemed to have come to a, uh - _mutual understanding_ , by then.” 

He _felt_ more than heard her laugh that time. The reverberations tangible across the bedding as she shuffled herself closer towards him, before cautiously, tentatively, snuggling up against the warmth of his chest, her eyes fluttering shut once again. Geralt let it happen. Though he still wasn’t sure how sensible this was, or what she was expecting from him. But it was nice. So he didn’t try to fight against the unfamiliar familiarity of it, or the way his arm wanted so desperately to curve over her hip and around to the small of her back, pulling her closer. 

Cally joined them a few minutes later, barging through the door with far more force than Geralt had been expecting, before she leaped up onto the bed and curled up beside them. 

And this, Geralt thought, was far, _far_ too cozy. 

But who was he to complain?

* * *

He must have fallen asleep again because he suddenly found his brain jarred awake by the sound of his phone wailing at him. Yen groaned against his chest before he fumbled, bleary-eyed, to find the source of the noise. Though the sound had finally stopped when he reached it.

Jaskier. Jaskier had been calling. 

_Shit._

“What are you doing?” Yen asked with a voice that almost sounded hurt as Geralt began shoving his pants back onto his limbs. Realising too late he’d put the wrong leg on. 

“I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch an hour ago.” _How had he slept in so long, he never did that?_

“A friend?” Her forehead creased, and he would have found it adorable if he’d allowed himself a moment to notice between rushing to find the rest of his clothes. 

“Jaskier, he’s a journalist doing a piece on a case I’m currently working on. Helps to get public support for the clients sometimes.” Geralt explained. 

“Oh,” She’d sat up now, he noticed, sheets pulled shyly over her chest as she watched him, Cally sat staring judgingly at him by Yen’s feet. 

_What was he doing?_

“Would you, uh -” He stuttered. “Would you like to come?” 

She blinked for a minute, surprised. “To lunch?”

“Yeah.” Geralt was well aware of the weight behind the gesture, he had no idea what she had told her friends about him and whatever _this_ was between them. But neither had yet so much as even momentarily stepped inside the friendship circle of the other. He wondered if Jaskier would have a heart attack. Or what would even be appropriate for Geralt to introduce her as. 

“I’d love to,” She beamed. 

* * *

Jaskier, it turned out, did not have a heart attack. But he did send Geralt the look of the century when he’d decide to simply introduce the dark-haired woman after a moment of stumbling as ‘my Yen.’ She seemed to like that. But Geralt wasn’t so fond of the way the journalist immediately and incessantly began to flirt with her on Geralt’s behalf for the remainder of the day. 

But they seemed to like each other, so maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, he conceded.


	5. Chapter 5

It was breaking habit that Geralt hadn't fucked anything up yet despite their shared tendency to be acrimonious at times, his brand more solemn compared to her riled sparkiness. And even more miraculous that he seemed to be doing everything humanly possible to actively avoid doing so. Which was new. And possibly alarming. But in the peaceful moments when his head would grow heavy where it rested on her lap and the tips of her fingers would run absentmindedly through his hair, he found all sense of worry melting away.

It happened so slowly over the next few months that he barely noticed the change, but his quiet life had gradually turned into something loud and colourful. And his weekends became filled with _people_. Though whether that was a good thing or not was something he was still questioning. 

He had soon met what he _hoped_ was all of Yen's friends. Women that, she explained, she had shared a lodge with for the years she'd stayed at boarding school as a teenager. Yen didn't announce they'd be arriving on the day he'd first had to introduce himself, watching in a semi-state of shock as they barged through the door with bottles of various types of alcohol in their hands and noisy 'hello's to disrupt the evening. He wondered if Yen had even known. Or if she'd been just as taken aback as he was. 

Understandably, he'd found them all a bit overwhelming at the start but soon noticed himself adjusting to the chaos that filled Yen's apartment whenever they arrived in all their boisterous splendour. 

It almost felt like he'd just jumped inside an episode of Friends, though he wasn't sure what character he was supposed to be, he just hoped he wasn't Ross. 

God, he hoped he wasn't Ross. 

* * *

"What made you want to be a lawyer?" Yennefer asked one evening a few weeks later, before stuffing a twirled forkful of noodles into her mouth, takeout boxes strewn over his living room table. 

Geralt paused from picking at his own dinner. The question felt like pressing down on a yellowing bruise, but he was aware that hadn't been Yen's intention, and, after all, she'd been honest enough to share her less than comfortable childhood secret with _him_ after he'd asked. 

"You remember me saying how I started in family law?" She didn't seem to notice the caution in his tone.

"Mmmhmm." Perhaps it was helping that her attention seemed to be stuck on devouring the Chinese food piled onto her plate

"I was, uh -" He took a breath. "I was in foster care from the age of four. Grew up under the stress of custody battles with a mother that seemed to try to get me back every time she got so much as slightly sober."

Yen was paying careful attention to him now.

"I moved around homes a lot, mostly my own fault - I wasn't an easy kid. But honestly I spent so much time in the wooden seats of courtrooms that it started to feel like the one unchanging, certain, thing in my life. Somewhere I felt unfairly comfortable. And then, after too many years, I was lucky enough to find Vesemir and the ranch." Geralt paused for a moment, his hands shuffling in his lap. "And as I grew older, the concept of being able to help other kids find somewhere they could learn to call home too just seemed to make sense. So I decided to specialize in cases of guardianship and adoption." 

Yen's eyes were held on him with such a gentle curiosity that Geralt wished Cally had been there for him to busy his attention with his fingers under her chin. 

"You're full of surprises, Geralt," She smiled faintly, kindly, the expression turning near cheeky a second later. "Who would've known that such a softy would be underneath all that brooding charm."

* * *

She climbed into his lap later, blood lulled by wine and their plates now empty as her arms found home around the back of his neck, the palm of his hands settling over the dip above her hip bones before ghosting round to her back. Pulling her flush against his chest as she kissed him, lips warm and wanting. 

He whispered it against her mouth as she pulled away to breathe a while later, and for the first time in his life, he was entirely sure he meant it. "I love you." 

And he felt within his arms, his heart freezing, as every muscle in her body tensed at once, her eyes flashing open to reveal something turned cold and empty. 

_Shit._

“What?” She asked, more from disbelief than any desire to hear him say it again, before she stood suddenly, awkwardly stumbling out of his lap. “I should go. Cally… Cally needs feeding.” 

And then she was gone. Doing nothing to prevent the door slamming shut behind her as he watched the last traces of her disappearing down the hallway. Astounded.

_What had he done wrong this time?_


	6. Chapter 6

It was not - Geralt hoped, and was only half certain - for once, _his_ fault that his phone had gone unusually silent. Empty from the name he'd spent the last few months smiling at every single time it flashed up on his home screen. Habit was still making him check. And breaking a part of his heart each time there was nothing. 

It was a first, that in all his shamefully short relationships, it was a confession of love rather than its absence that had made everything fall apart like pulling out a cornerstone Jenga block the moment you got too cocky. 

After staring blankly at the door she’d used for her escape for what might have been five minutes or half an hour - Geralt couldn’t tell you, he’d tried to follow. But her apartment was silent when he arrived. And no answer came after he’d knocked, though he was certain the faint cat-like squeak of welcome hadn’t been in his head.

What would he have even said? _I’m sorry? I don’t love you, I didn’t mean it, please come back upstairs?_

He sighed out a groan, conceding defeat. Chasing was not going to be a suitable cure to fix this. Yen would talk to him, when she was ready - or maybe she would ignore him for the rest of her life and pretend none of this had ever happened.

Three days passed before he began to seriously worry her chosen tactic had been the latter. And for the first time in his life he actually feared he was going to lose someone, because he’d finally stumbled across another human being that truly, actually, _mattered_ to him. Someone that he would miss far too much.

It was a need, being around her, like how the darkness of the night sky needs the flicker of diamond-cast stars, or how the fall of a wave needs a bed of sand and pebbles to roll onto, and all that cheesy, cliche, romantic shit he’d never paid half a mind to before.

He could exist without her. But it wouldn’t be the same - dull, and stagnant. Exactly the way it had been before Cally wondered in through his window that day.

And the cat. _God, was he going to have to get his own cat now?_

* * *

True to the collapse of a Jenga tower, it seemed everything was falling apart at once. Eskel called on Monday; an old custody case Geralt had thought he’d handled had opened up all over again with even more fraying seams than the first time. The child’s grandmother had died, which, after all the time he’d spent helping her was bad news enough in itself - but the question of guardianship was under fire _again_ now that the father was soon to be released from the shackles of prison. Along with another concerning update that Eskel had warned him off but refrained from fully explaining. It was tedious and endless and the goddamn _paperwork_. 

But Geralt wouldn’t abandon Ciri. Remembering the sight of how she’d been sat atop a stack of cushions so she could even see over the table, the little girl had always tried so hard to be brave in the bewilderment of the loud and echoey courtrooms as her relatives played tug of war with her childhood. He’d always made sure to smile at her whenever he caught her looking. And, more often than not, she’d smiled back, without any trace of the timidness he assumed was to be expected from a three-year-old. 

But it would mean traveling up north for three weeks until the mess of a trail was finished. So, he started packing. Hoping his apartment would feel more appealing when he returned. 

* * *

Yen had been sulking for weeks, but it had taken Triss no time at all, despite her friends rebuffle to any and all questioning, to conclude it had something to do with Mr tall, pale and handsome Yennefer had been spending an unprecedented amount of time with. It wasn’t new for Yen to pick up and drop men like hot rocks, but all the crying buried under heaps of blankets and shoveling her face with caramelized popcorn every other night definitely was. 

It had been amusing at first. _Oh look, Yen, you’re actually human._ But three weeks was becoming exhausting and if her overly stubborn best friend was going to do nothing to rectify the situation, then Triss was going to pull up her sleeves, and do something herself. 

It sounded like Geralt had been rushing when he pulled the door open, his face visibly disappointed to be greeted by the faceful of freckles and startlingly red hair standing outside his doorway. 

"Nice to see you again too." Triss folded her arms. 

"Sorry," He sighed. "I was expecting-"

"Yen?" 

"Yeah…" He moved to the side as she pushed past him through the doorway. 

The apartment was far more homey than she’d been expecting based off Yennefer’s descriptions of the place, though the living room looked chaotic, as if he were right in the middle of refurnishing. Yen must have been rubbing off on him. 

“How much did she tell you?” Geralt asked cautiously, letting the door fall closed behind them.

“Not a lot,” Triss explained. “It was hard to make it out through the sobbing, but she seems to think she messed up somehow, and that you’ve been ignoring her -”

“ _I’ve_ been ignoring _her_?” He interrupted.

Triss frowned defensively. “Yeah. She said you wouldn’t answer the door.” 

He looked more invested now. “When?”

“I don’t know,” She shrugged, exasperated. “Maybe two weeks ago?”

“Two weeks ago…” Geralt momentarily froze, his jaw working on an answer while his mind was lagging ten seconds behind, before he spoke, quietly, slowly, as if something were dawning on him. “I was out of town...” 

“You were out of town?” Triss raised her eyebrows, her voice following suit. "And you didn't think to tell her that?"

"She wasn't talking to me!"

Triss rolled her eyes, before letting her face fall into her hands, mumbling as she spoke. "You're both so stupid, I swear it's like you’re soulmates or something.” 

“I don’t know what to do.” He said quietly, sounding very much like a lost puppy, which was a strange expression on a man as large and bulky as him. 

She felt her eyes roll again without even telling them too. _So. Stupid._ "You are aware, Geralt, of this amazing thing human beings invented a hundred thousand years ago called _words_. Maybe you should use some." 

“Words are exactly what got me into this mess!” 

She could hear the frustration in his tone, more than seemed necessary from the situation with Yen alone, and she wondered, her eyes scanning the room, if it had something to do with all his upheaved furniture. But despite the repressed anger, he didn’t shout, or even so much as raise his voice. Which was charming in its own way, she could see why Yen liked him.

And then Triss realised. “Um, what words exactly?”

He seemed tentative to answer, but the guess was already making itself at home in her mind. 

“I told her I loved her,” He admitted, finally, his eyes mournful and doing nothing to hide it. “And then she stormed out the door.” 

“Oh,” Triss said quietly. “ _Oh_.” 

The room fell to silence for a few heartbeats, before Triss spoke again, carefully. “Geralt, I think you should sit down.’

“What, why?” He asked, forehead clearly puzzled, which was understandable. 

“Because we all originally assumed, Yen included I think, that this was going to be nothing more than a fling like all her normal relationships. But it’s been made abundantly clear by both of you idiots that it’s gone beyond that. And I think it’s important you know something.”

Geralt sat. Though he didn’t look any less perturbed. 

“Okay, listen.” Triss fidgeted with her hands. _Did she even have the right to tell him this? Surely if it had the potential to fix things then Yen would have no need to be angry?_ “Yen’s, uh - And I have to warn you, this might be a bit much, I know you guys haven’t actually been seeing each other for that long, but Yen -” She paused, realising she’d started to pace. “Yen has always really wanted a family - wanted kids.” She watched for his reaction, content that he didn’t flinch but aware of the growing confusion on his face. 

“What has that got to do with _us_?” 

“You see, Yen’s never actually been in a serious relationship before, she’s never let herself get that close to someone - though I don’t think she’s ever truly wanted to either,” Triss explained, trying not to ramble. “Anyway, she always cuts things off before it hurts too much to do so - a tactic that’s spectacularly failed in this case.”

“But why would she do that?” He asked. 

“Well, that’s the tragic thing about Yen, because, as much as she wants a family,” Triss took a slow breath. “She can’t actually have one.” 

The frown still hadn’t left his forehead. “What exactly are you saying?” 

“Why do you think she works in a fertility clinic, Geralt?” Triss moved to slump into the opposite end of the couch; having this conversation vicariously was emotionally draining enough, she could understand why Yen had told so few people. “She always leaves, because she knows what it’s like to not be able to have kids, and she doesn’t want to put that on anybody else.” 

The contemplative quiet returned for a few moments, before Geralt broke it, his voice louder this time. “That’s insane.”

“I’m well aware, I’ve been trying to convince her of that for years.” 

“So, she has - without even asking, decided to sacrifice our relationship on the basis that she’s saving me from disappointment in the instance that I might have any potential desire to someday, maybe, have my own family?”

Triss nodded. “Yep.”

“But...” Geralt gaped. “Why would she think that would matter?” 

“Because she’s Yen, and she’s a mess!” Triss raised her hands as if in mock surrender. “Now, are you gonna go and talk to her?”

“I -” He started. “I’m not sure now’s a good time.” 

“What the hell are you talking about, now’s a good a time as any!” Triss practically yelled at him. _God, they’re both as stubborn as each other._

“I will eventually,” He promised. “I will talk to her, but I need a few days first. Something came up... at work.”

Her arms folded again. “Are you just making excuses?”

“No,” He shook his head, and she realised for the first time how tired he looked. “No, I’m not.”

“What is it?” She asked, this time softer. 

He brushed a hand through his hair as he let out a long, slow breath. “It’s kind of hard to explain.” 

“Try me.” She challenged. 

Geralt did not speak again, instead, leaning towards the coffee table sat in front of him and reaching for a document from the mess of paperwork sprawled there that Triss had disregarded as administrative lawyer junk. Before he handed it to her.

She read it over five times before the meaning finally agreed to sink in. Something unexpected etched between overly formal legal jargon and scribbled signatures. Until she whispered, astonished. “Holy shit.” 


	7. Chapter 7

_You have these rules for a reason, Yen,_ she told herself. Dippin her hand back into the near desolate bowl of chips she’d been cramming into her tear-stained face for the last ten minutes. The reminder stinging, and only proving the thought that had been throwing a tantrum in her mind for the last few weeks; _you should have ended it sooner._

But she hadn't wanted to. For the first time she really, _really_ hadn’t wanted to. But the consequences of her own emotional negligence were now painting her eyes red and her cheeks sodden, and causing a certain little calico to glare at her disapprovingly. Because now Yen was stuck. 

It was an oppressively loud realisation that her heart wouldn’t let her be rid of him. But the days she’d spent arguing in her own head, and the further hours it had taken her to even build up the courage, had lead her to his front door, only to be greeted with silence. Her apology left hanging on her tongue and heavy in her chest. 

Perhaps it was better this way. Maybe if he moved on, then she could too. 

_You’re such a blubbering mess, Yen -_ words Triss had said, reprimand in her tone after she’d grown frustrated. And she’d been right. 

Logic had been evading her, undisciplined emotions taking its place, but she’d pushed herself to try again the next day, to drag her feet back to his front door, hoping, praying - despite the fact she’d never been one for leaving her dreams to faith, that he’d simply been _out_. Working the office late at night, perhaps drinking with his colleagues - any sort of rationale she could think of to dispel the nagging thought in her mind that Geralt, in all the time she’d known him, had never been the sort of person to do that. 

She knew the conversation was going to hurt. The memory of a tattoo needle torturing her back for six hours seemed preferable but she hadn’t anticipated how sharp the pain would be after the sound of her knuckles tapping against the wood of his front door was greeted with silence once again, as she stood and waited in the hallway. Alone.

She'd cursed herself then, realising how callous it had been to ignore him that day. When he’d followed her retreat and called her name softly from the outside of her door. She had heard. And she’d ignored him, choosing to curl up with Cally and watching with a distant expression as raindrops fell down in streams against her bedroom window. 

She’d been panicking. And even if she _had_ been brave enough to open the door, he would have been faced with a version of herself that could scarcely form a coherent reply, let alone explain her outlandish response to a declaration that should have had a simple, easy answer. 

And it did, of course it did, but it was that exact realisation that had sent fear pulsing through her veins. Because she _did_ love him. Completely and overwhelmingly, _why else would it be hurting so much?_

Yen, mournfully, discovered her bowl of snacks was empty, and whatever movie she’d been letting play on her laptop had finished half an hour ago. So she forced herself out of bed, and into the kitchen.

And then Triss had barged through the door. 

_Why had she ever given her friend a key?_ The reasoning was lost miles away to her now. 

“Ah, Yen.” Triss greeted, with a tone that was unfairly cheerful, as Yen felt the food bowl being stolen from her hands and thrown into the sink. “I do admire your dedication to the belief that any sized bag of chips can be a single portion if you try hard enough, but I really think it’s about time you had a proper meal.”

“I -” Yen stammered, frustrated. “What are you doing here?” 

The redhead folded her arms. “I was just in the middle of speaking to an alarmingly white-haired man upstairs, seeing as you both seem to have the emotional maturity of toddlers, I thought it best I try to do something myself.”

Yen tried to glare, but it probably came across far weaker than she intended amongst her pink and puffy eyes. “Triss -”

“Shut up, Yen,” Her friend scolded. “You’ve been a complete disaster recently, and entirely unnecessarily I might add.”

Cally took the opportunity to meow as she walked into the room, as if voicing her agreement. 

“I don’t think that’s fair -”

“Really?” Triss interrupted again. “I love you Yen, but have you actually managed to do anything other than binge-watch crappy tv and mope around your apartment for the last three weeks?” 

“I…” Yennefer stammered. 

“No?” Triss raised a cocky eyebrow. “My point proven then.”

Yen couldn’t tell if this was supposed to be an argument or an admonishment, considering how flat her interjections were, it was probably leaning towards the latter. “You spoke to him?”

“Yes,” Triss nodded. “And you’ll never guess what, but the reason he hasn’t been answering his door is not, as you told me, because he’s decided he now hates you, but because he’s been five hundred goddamn miles away! And you’re both such dire excuses for human beings that you’ve both been trying to communicate in entirely different ways while assuming the other was being spitefully quiet.” 

“He’s been away?” Yen asked, guarded.

“Yes!” Triss huffed, raising her hands into the air in a gesture of hallelujah. “Do you understand now, Yen?”

“Oh...” _Well that… changed things._ Three weeks of distressing conclusions to his behaviour unraveling along with the tight knot that had formed in her chest. As she let out a reprieved breath. “And he’s upstairs? Now?”

“Yeah," Triss nodded, though Yen caught sight of the simmered caution in her friends eyes. “But I should warn you - though it’s nothing to be scared of, per se, but he, uh - He came home with extra ' _baggage'._ A metaphorical bomb went off with one of his work cases, and it would probably be better to let the dust settle a bit first.” 

“Okay...” Yen agreed, trying to subdue her legs that were already pleading to make their way to the staircase. “But, what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” 

“Hmm,” Triss hummed. “When was the last time you had a decent bunch of actual vegetables? How about I cook for you while you go and wash all those tear streaks off your face?” 

Yen let out a soft laugh, brushing her hand over her cheek as she nodded. “Okay,”

* * *

Triss watched her friend disappear into the bathroom, finally letting the grin she’d been holding back take over her face. An expression in her eyes that Yen would have noticed in an instant as something cheeky and conniving, but in a loving kind of a way.

Her hands busied themselves with adventuring through the fridge, as the thought returned to her mind, that maybe Yen would never be able to have a family, but perhaps fate had allowed her the chance to stumble onto one. 


	8. Chapter 8

Geralt hadn’t expected to be so nervous as he found his way through the arrival gates, his hands fidgeting with the keys stuffed in his pockets, his feet refusing to let him sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, and the heart in his chest beating so loudly he could hear it even over the obnoxious noise of the airport bustle. 

This had to be a strong rival for the most incongruous decision he’d ever made. 

He could have said no. A fact that had made itself blaringly known in his mind during every second he’d allowed himself to contemplate the decision; his job had left him well versed in the legalities of it. And after social services had given him the all-clear, it was his choice alone to make. 

But this was Ciri. ‘No’ had never been an option, and besides, he’d never had any trouble keeping houseplants alive, and this could only be - what, a quadrillion times harder? Yeah, he’d be fine. 

_Oh God, what was he doing?_

The hesitancy melted from his mind the moment he saw her, the familiar horse-shaped teddy tucked under one of her arms and a backpack over her shoulders. Already straining against the social worker who was doing her best to keep a hold of the little girl's hand without letting the suitcase kilter over on its wheels as she dragged it behind them. 

And he’d smiled. What felt like the first sincere smile in almost a month as she rushed on tiny, fervent legs towards him before calling out his name. Though she pronounced it slightly off, in the wobbly way young children tended to do, with the ‘t’ at the end of his name falling to sound suspiciously like a ‘d’. But he’d always found it endearing when she did that.

She raised up her hands in asking when she reached him, Geralt responding without even thinking as he lifted her into his arms, taken aback by how tightly she hugged him. It was far more cathartic than he expected. As he felt a slow relieved breath escape him along with the heaviness of lead that had spent the last few days sitting oppressively over his heart. Shifting the overgrown toddler to balance on his hip as she moved away. 

“Look!” She exclaimed, lifting the plushy in her hand to his attention. “Kelpie is coming too!” 

“I can see that,” He let out a soft laugh. The horse had been a gift, a remedy to stop the tears welling up in her eyes before the very first trial almost a year ago. It had worked far better than he’d expected. “Is she still looking after you like I said she would?” 

“Yeah! She is a pegasus now.” Ciri explained like it made perfect sense, taking her time to sound out the word as if she’d only just learned it. “I decided on the plane.” 

Ciri kept talking as they found somewhere to sit, the social worker handing over the last of the paperwork while Ciri told him all about the flight in endearingly crooked sentences. He wondered, something in his chest tightening again, if she was even able to fully comprehend what was happening. Whether her obvious joviality was something he was allowed to take heart from, or if it was just a consequence of childlike disregard to how thoroughly her life was about to change. But then Ciri’s life so far had been anything _but_ stable; this disarray probably all felt normal to her. He wanted to help change that. 

But she was beaming when he handed back the last of the documents, the stroke of a pen signing away the fate of her childhood for what he hoped was the last time. And he thought, maybe her grandmother hadn’t been completely crazy. Maybe they would be okay.

It would take him only two days to send out an s.o.s. 

* * *

Yennefer nearly squealed in excitement when she saw his name chime up on her phone a few evenings later. Though the text he’d sent wasn’t what she’d imagined would break the agony of weeks of silence, and left her understandably puzzled. 

_I need your help._

She wasted no time making her way out the door, contemplating if he was trying to break the ice the same way she had, and if he’d spent the last ten minutes kicking in his own kitchen cabinet for her to heroically come and fix. But that didn’t seem likely. 

She paused as she reached the threshold of his apartment, the sound of infant-like wailing making her feet freeze. _What on earth was that?_

The door flew open a heartbeat after she’d knocked, confusion on her faze greeted by the horrified alarm written all over his. An expression that would have looked comical under different circumstances. 

“Hi,” He said, some of his tension visibly leaving his shoulders the moment he saw her - a reaction, she noted, that immediately made her heart warm. 

“Hi...” She replied back, slow, bewildered. The bawling noise now unquestionably louder without the door as a barrier, and coming from the direction of the smaller of the two bedrooms. “What’s happening?” 

“We’re having a problem,” His voice sounded defeated, almost pleading, as he led Yen to the source of the crying. Shifting to the side as they approached to allow her to peek through the half open door at what she assumed was a child, but it had hidden itself so far under the ruffled bedding that it was hard to tell. And then, Gealt said, with a tone that was so dispirited it was almost amusing. “This is Ciri.” 

Yen reminded herself to make her jaw behave, closing her stunned mouth, her arms folding. “Geralt... exactly how long have you had a kid?”

“Um, about two days?” He answered, though by the look on his face it seemed like the guess of a man who’d surrendered his perception of time to the chaos of raising a toddler. 

Yen’s forehead creased so fiercely she was worried it was going to give her a headache. “How?” 

“Her family - I’d been working with them for years on and off, her grandma left me as guardian in her will.” Geralt explained. “Honestly, I wish I knew her logic behind it, but it was either this or foster care...”

Yen let her arms fall loose. “Oh.” 

“I need help Yen, she’s been crying for the last half an hour.” 

“I’m not sure how much help I’m going to be, I have next to no experience with kids. And even less so around screaming ones.” She grimaced. 

Geralt looked at her, his expression turning despaired. “But you work in a fertility clinic?”

“And?” Yen raised an eyebrow. “You do realise Geralt, that I generally have no involvement with the children of my clients past the point of conception?” 

“Oh,” He looked even more defeated at that, as his eyes fell back on the wailing three-year-old.

“What actually happened?”

“Well,” He began solemnly. “It started when she threw her teddy out the window. God knows how she even managed to open it, I turned my back for five minutes and she’d suddenly puzzled her way through the child lock.” Yen watched attentively as he took a breath. “So I went to fetch it from the alleyway, but of course, it decided to land in the dumpster of all places. So, I thought, you know, naturally, I should wash it. But now she’s mad at me because she thinks I drowned her horse.” 

Yen was trying to stifle a smile, her eyebrows raised, when he finally turned to look at her again.

“Please don’t laugh,”

“I’m not,” She cleared her throat to fight it off, shaking her head. “I’m not laughing.” 

She heard him sigh again before he spoke. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave her like this but the dryer’s still got another twenty minutes before it’s finished.” 

Yen took a step closer towards the door. “Can I?” 

“Go ahead,”

She pushed it open enough to fit through, aware of how Ciri quietened to muffled sniffing at the sound of it squeaking on its hinges, before Yen walked over to the bed, and tentatively knelt down beside it. 

“Hi Ciri,” Yen spoke quietly, gently, smiling as the little girl pulled the blankets down from over her face at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. Her blonde hair disheveled in waves over her pillow, with eyes, Yen observed, a striking shade of pale green.

“Hello,” Ciri offered shyly in reply, rubbing a hand against her reddened eyes, palm brushing over her tear-soaked cheeks as if to disguise the fact she’d been crying. 

“I hear you have a horse?” Yen watched as the three-year-old nodded slowly in confirmation. “Does it have a name?”

Ciri sniffed again, before answering timidly. “Kelpie.” 

“That’s…” Yen started. “An interesting name.” _If not a slightly morbid one, she thought._ “Do you know the cool thing about Kelpies?”

Ciri shook her head slowly, the wetness of her eyes replaced by something akin to a spark of curiosity. 

“They live near rivers,” Yen told her. “They love to swim, and splash around, _and_ I’ve been told they can even hold their breath for hours.”

“They can?” 

Yen hummed in affirmation. “And I know your Kelpie is going to be fine, because she’s got Geralt looking after her.” 

Yen turned to face him then, surprised and slightly overwhelmed by the fondness she found in the way he was looking at her from the doorway. She had to look away to stop her face from flushing. 

Geralt moved to settle on the foot of the mattress, but the bed was full sized - large enough that he was still miles away from her feet. The proximity unintrusive. 

“Ciri,” He began carefully. “Why did you throw Kelpie out the window?” 

“She wanted to go home,” Ciri explained, quieter this time. “She was gonna find home.” 

Yen’s heart broke a little as the little girl’s eyes misted over again, her face falling back into the tear sodden pillow. “Oh, Ciri.” 

She turned back to face Geralt, an expression on his face that seemed to ask, ‘any more ideas?’ 

She had one. “Wait here.” 

* * *

Geralt watched as Yen returned with what remained of her monstrous hoard of snacks five minutes later.

“Uh, are you sure that’s sensible?” He asked, pointing towards the feast she’d gathered in her arms.

“She’s having a shitty day, I think she deserves some shitty food.” Yen shrugged. “We do what works for now, okay?”

Geralt only had the mind to nod, entertained by the way she ripped open one of the packets and let it tumble out onto a plate. 

“Ciri,” Yen called out from the kitchen alluringly. “I have cookies, but you’re only allowed some if you come out of your room.” 

Geralt didn’t think the coercion was going to work. Until she shuffled out of her bedroom, bleary-eyed and rosy-cheeked, as Yen shot him a look of triumph. Before Ciri clambered up into a chair and began stuffing her face. 

* * *

Night crept up on them, the light through the window turning dark by the time Ciri was curled up in bed again - asleep and content, before Geralt had even had time to fetch Kelpie from the laundromat. 

“How did you know that would work?” Geralt asked quietly, joining Yen reclining against the doorframe of the three-year-olds bedroom after he’d silently placed the teddy beside her pillow.

“The world always seems slightly less awful with a belly full of food.” She explained gently. “Maybe don’t make a habit of the dietary choices though, okay?” 

Geralt laughed almost silently, his gaze falling onto the way Yen’s face had turned warm, maternal, as she watched Ciri sleeping. 

“Thank you.” He said.

Her eyes flickered up to his, before she smiled in understanding, the expression dying a few heartbeats later as an admission caught in her throat as it fought to be spoken. “I love you. I was too much of a coward to be able to tell you before. But I do.” 

“It’s okay, Yen.” He professed. Taking a step forward, slow, as not to startle her, moving to cup her face with the palm of his hand, the v of his thumb tucking under her ear, before he rested his forehead against hers. Taking a deep breath, languid and easy, letting himself simply enjoy the contact. 

“Now what?” She asked after he’d finally pulled away. 

“I guess we just keep doing what works.” He suggested. Taking Yen’s hand before he moved to switch off Ciri’s light, and closing the bedroom door noiselessly behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not super content with how this turned out, but the point of this fic was to be able to write something and be less nitpicky about it, so it is what it is. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	9. Chapter 9

_Why was finding a decent daycare so goddamn difficult in this city?_

The guys at the office had relinquished Geralt for now, on what they had called ‘paternity leave’. The term didn’t seem _in_ correct. But he still couldn’t tell if they were making fun of him or not. 

But being stuck in his apartment for a considerable part of the day while he did what little work he could get done from home wasn’t doing either of them any good. He’d know even before he brought her home that Ciri wasn’t the sort of kid that you could stick in front of a screen and leave unattended for hours. She was more likely to go wandering the halls. Or use her crayons over the canvas of her bedroom wall, it probably needed redecorating anyway, he acknowledged, after stumbling across her scribbled masterpiece for the first time. 

His situation with Yen had been thrown into the confusion of lawlessness. Any understanding of how to even approach the situation was lost to him, and he doubted anyone else existed on the whole continent who’d had their relationship bearings thrown completely off track by the sudden acquisition of a three-year-old, all before even having the chance to reciprocate the words ‘I love you’. And by now his compass had been completely obliterated.

Yen loved him. She’d said it, and had the courage to do so even _after_ finding out about Ciri. That had to be significant, meaningful - but he found himself unable to tug her towards the entanglement of sudden parenthood he’d found himself in. It wasn’t fair. But it was a lie to try to admit he wasn’t missing her. 

He survived until the weekend before he let himself give in to the feeling.

* * *

Yen’s life returned to quiet over the next few days, but at least she now knew the reason for the silence. 

He hadn't yet asked for help again. But she found herself waiting for him to.

It wasn't, Yen knew, fair to pry, even after her admission of how she felt about him. Geralt’s life had been swept through by the recklessness of an emotional hurricane, and he didn't - she continuously had to remind herself - need her own emotional turbulence to deal with on top of everything else he was handling at the moment

And now there was another person to think about. Young, blond, dazzlingly green-eyed, and the most adorable little girl Yen had ever met. 

She'd just been uprooted. Ciri needed time to flourish and grow into the comfort and familiarity of where life had now brought her. Yen was something new. Undetermined. 

So she left them in peace. 

* * *

Yennefer found them both outside her door on Saturday morning, so early she’d still been in her pajamas with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand. 

She blinked at the sight of them, Ciri held in one of his arms, and her teddy held in one of hers. The three-year-old decked in an endearingly small pink coat and matching bobble topped hat. 

‘We're going to the zoo!” Ciri told her, and to Yen’s uncaffeinated mind, the excitement and adorableness of the way she’d said it was enough to give her vertigo. 

“We were wondering if you wanted to come.” Geralt beamed at her. 

She was pretty sure the smile she gave in reply took over her whole face.

* * *

Yen had never been so excited to see a giraffe; Ciri’s sense of adventure as she ran on wobbly legs between the enclosures was infectious in a way Yen had never experienced before. Geralt tried to ask her to slow down. But the little girl wasn’t listening. 

It wasn’t a date. Not exactly. But it was the closest they’d ever gotten, Yen realised, and it was probably going to be as much of a resemblance as they were going to get for a while with Ciri, rightfully, taking up most of the spotlight. 

There was a simplicity to being with them, Yen thought. Being with _him_ , while their attention wasn’t so enthralled in the intricacies of what _they_ were doing, that it became easy to just enjoy each other’s company. The diversion of a infant, somehow, making her feel more comfortable and untroubled. 

She could still feel herself blushing occasionally. As his hand linked with hers when she forgot to stop herself from walking infinitesimally close beside him. She wasn’t sure why the contact painted her cheeks so pink, especially considering they’d been acquainted with each other in the most intimate and biblical sense for months now. She knew every scar on his body, every freckle, every mile of toned muscle, and she was pretty sure he’d traced the tips of his fingers along her flowers enough to be able to draw them by heart. 

But this was in the open, out in public. And she found even the innocence his fingers making a home within her own caused her heart to skip in her chest. 

Ciri kept her black-furred horse friend in her arms all day, Yen noted. Geralt later explaining, soberly, while Ciri had been distracted by the meerkats, that she scarcely let Kelpie out of her sight. But that was understandable. Her teddy was her one sense of dependability, in a life that so far had not been. 

* * *

They had just passed the penguins when Ciri tripped. 

Yen’s eyes went wide as she watched it happen, her mouth letting out an involuntary ‘fuck’ without the sense to stop herself saying it. But Geralt grabbed her arm before she could move towards the child. 

“Wait,” He cautioned, his voice hushed. “Let her figure it out.”

Yen didn’t fight him, feeling his hand loosen around hers as she watched, her heart aching like it was some sort of betrayal, while Ciri rose slowly to her feet. Brushing her hands down the front of her coat to dust herself off, before Yen noticed her looking at the palm of a pink scuffed hand. Swiveling back towards them, her eyes turning wet. But she didn’t start wailing like Yen had half expected. 

“I learned a trick for this,” Geralt explained to Yen quietly, as Ciri wandered back over to him, watching anxiously as he knelt in front of the three-year-old. “You okay?”

Ciri shook her head, showing him the reddened skin of her palm, speaking with little more than a sniff of distress. “Ouchie,” 

A diffident smile returned to Yen’s face as she observed him pulling a pack of bandaids out of his coat pocket, pink, she noted. 

He fished out one of the larger ones, pulling the seals off one by one as he carefully settled the bandaid against the marred skin. Ciri’s eyes seemed to clear immediately. 

“Better?” He asked, earning a delighted series of nods from Ciri, who gave him a quick hug before running away again with complete disregard for what had gotten her into trouble in the first place.

It was embarrassing, really, the look on her face as Geralt turned back towards her, soft as melted marshmallows and just as warm on the inside. Though he was kind enough to make no comment on it. 

* * *

“Geralt,” Ciri asked a while later as she walked between them. Yen noticing the unfairly adorable way she’d pronounced it slightly off-key. “Can we get a dog?”

“No, Ciri,” He shook his head fondly. “We can’t get a dog.”

“Why?” 

“Because we’re not allowed pets where we live.” He explained, sharing a short-lived look of amusement with Yen, who raised her eyebrow in defiance. 

“Oh,” Ciri sighed, before a thought turned her animated again. “Can we get a horse instead?”

“Ciri, Geralt frowned. “You do realise that’s not any better?”

Yen tried not to laugh at him as Ciri hummed in reply, only slightly defeated. She was about to suggest meeting Cally, the little girl still hadn’t had the chance - when she felt something nudge against her fingers. Curiosity making her eyes look down before she witnessed Ciri’s hand taking hold of her own. The three-year-olds tiny palm completely dwarfed within hers. 

Yen’s chest became a puddle of warmth.

There was something tentative about it for a few moments, until Ciri seamed content that Yen wasn’t going to pull away, the younger girl leading her eagerly towards the bat house as Yen glanced back towards Geralt with an expression in her eyes that was probably slightly moonstruck, noticing one mirrored in his that she couldn’t quite recognise. Thoughtful, but happy, as though he were deliberating something. 

But he became impossible to examine as Ciri tugged her through the rubbery curtain of the entrance, slowly overtaken by the dark of the bat rooms. 

And Yen wondered, her chest thrumming, if he’d been contemplating what she hoped he’d been. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to MichiMe for the zoo trip concept! I hope you like it :D If anyone else has any prompts, I'd be very happy to hear them!


	10. Chapter 10

Yen's Saturdays now belonged to a three-year-old. 

She loved her job, she always had, but for the first time in years, she found herself impatiently waiting for the days to pass and the weekend to return to her. The minutes and seconds of the clock taunting as she made it through to each Friday knowing she was only a few hours away from the best part of her whole week. 

It was sappy, Triss had teased her. But Yen didn't care. Because now she’d found her own piece of serenity, discovered it for herself in the fond eyes of a man who loved her and the small hand of the child he’d brought home. It was still astounding, when she thought about it, that in a matter of days she’d gone from sleeping with the man upstairs to tentatively dating someone who was shy, but not incorrect, in calling themselves a father. 

Their adventure to the zoo had sparked a tradition. Every Saturday since spent in each others company, wandering through the park in all its shades of spring, the watercolor river and all the amusement of the paddling birds that lived there. Ciri loved the swans. But didn’t so much like Geralt’s conviction to the rule that she wasn’t allowed to pet them. 

Or on the day - which had probably been Yen’s favourite, that it had been raining too earnestly to even consider stepping foot under the dark grey sky. So they’d stayed in his apartment. Warm and cozy as the downpour was left to fall in streams against the outside of the windowpane. 

Ciri had watched for a while, painting patterns against the mistiness forming on the inside of the glass with her fingers. 

Geralt handed Yen a mug of warm coffee that she took within both hands in an attempt to warm up her skin, before she realised the three-year-old had moved away from her window sketching, though it took Ciri a few minutes to reappear from her bedroom, a book in hand as she padded across the wooden floorboards on bunny-slipper covered feet towards where Yen was sat on the couch. 

It was hardback, Yen noted, as Ciri handed it to her somewhat timidly. A title of European Folklore spelled in cursive over the leather of the front cover. _That explains the Kelpies,_ she thought, _but this is not exactly a children’s book._

Yen carefully pried open the front page as Ciri settled onto the couch beside her, and although the little girl didn’t ask, it wasn’t hard to guess the meaning behind bringing it to her. But Yen had never read to a kid before. 

The inscription made her pause. Something written by a gentle and loving hand that made her feel invasive as her eyes read over the first few lines, flickering down to the end of the passage before noticing the signature. 

_Ciri’s mother had given her this,_ the realisation made Yen’s heart wobble as she brushed through the first few pages, noticing the woman’s voice had been left in whispers scattered over the borders and empty spaces between illustrations and stories. Geralt had explained the tragedy of it, how Ciri's whole childhood had been left in the hands of uncertainty after her mother passed away while she'd only been four months old. Allowed only enough time to leave farewells and to put in place a will that had been rebelled against by a vengeful father - cascading into two years of guardianship hostility.

She looked up to find Ciri waiting, nonchalant to the intimate treasure she’d just handed a completely unexpecting Yennefer. 

“Which one would you like me to read?” Yen had asked, trying to keep her voice even. 

She’d let out a soft laugh when Ciri simply replied ‘all of them,’ but they had the whole day to waste, so she wasn’t going to refuse. Though Yen became keenly aware, a few stories later, when Ciri shuffled towards her, observing the pictures of the faeries and monsters in Yen's hands as closely as she could, until she was all but cuddled up against Yen’s side. 

Her coffee had gone cold. But Yennefer didn’t feel like she needed it anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna try to return to daily updates, but that might mean slightly shorter chapters again :D


	11. Chapter 11

It was a deadline he’d been dreading, but Geralt’s work leave had to end eventually. It didn’t feel right - to unsettle Ciri with something else that was _new_ when she had only just gotten used to the routines and patterns of living here with him. 

He had asked, enough times to be certain Ciri understood what it meant, if she would be okay going to daycare. Her clear animation over the prospect only backing up the vehement nodding she’d given each time in reply. 

She was brave, braver than any child had any right or need to be. But it still felt like a small part of him was betraying her the first time he’d left her behind in a nursery full of people she didn’t know. Even _more_ strangers. Footsteps carrying her through the precarious world of something that was yet again unfamiliar. He’d told himself this was the last time her life would be built on a groundwork of sand - but that meant finding a balance that was sustainable for the both of them. And he was aware she’d been no stranger to childcare while living with her grandmother.

Ciri brought Kelpie with her, which was no surprise, hugging the teddy close as they walked through the front doors. 

Geralt watched anxiously as she was shown into the playroom, listening with only half an ear as one of the workers explained the children’s schedule for the day, his attention focused on the way Ciri retreated to the empty colouring table in the corner of the room. Looking just as disoriented as he was. 

He had to force himself to leave. 

It was only a trial. Just for the morning - enough time to be able to tidy his apartment before Ciri had the opportunity to return and fervently _un_ tidy it. That had been the plan. But instead, he spent most of his Monday morning worrying, doing nothing at all to fix the three-year-old blizzard that had swept through his living room. And he contemplated, groaning into the palm of his hands, at what point he had become such a dad.

* * *

But it was near impossible to get her to leave when he returned a few hours later. Discovering Ciri sat around the same table, but now with an enthralled group of toddlers surrounding her as she recounted, in patchwork pieces, the myths and folklores Yen had read to her a few days ago, illustrated by the scribbles of characters Ciri had brought to life with crayons over coloured paper. They were awful drawings, but endearing all the same. 

He asked one of the nursery workers if Ciri had made any friends. 

“I think what she’s made -” She’d began, her voice lighthearted. “Is a bunch of disciples.” 

Geralt thought, as he walked her home, her hand in his - that maybe roots were finding soil, that maybe they were finally starting to get the hang of this.

* * *

Yen’s phone chimed mere minutes before she’d planned to leave work. A text, rather than a call. And she was familiar enough with Geralt’s habits to know that most likely meant he was held ransom inside the echoing walls of a courtroom. She’d guessed its contents before she even unlocked her phone.

_Would you possibly mind picking Ciri up? I’m gonna be stuck here for a few more hours._

It wasn't much of a question really, though Yennefer was starting to think Geralt was too oblivious to realise how readily she would have bent over backward for either of them. 

_Will they let me?_ She sent back - It would have been a pitiful daycare if they let anyone off the street show up and wantonly claim a child. 

His reply came quickly. _Yes, you're on her list._

 _Oh_ , she thought. Staring at her phone for a few moments as she tried to rationalise why the concept had made her so giddy. 

* * *

It was a foreign experience for Yen, and one that immediately registered as daunting, the moment she stepped into the nursery’s reception. The deep breath was almost involuntary. Steadying herself as she became aware of the toddlers and infants held in the arms or by the hands of their parents. Something unexpected kicking her in the heart, and a rebellious lump of emotion forming in her throat at the reminder of everything she would never be able to have. Before her hand, as instructed, signed Ciri out for the day on the sheet handed to her. 

“You’re her mother?” The young man behind the desk asked, not impolitely, but the question was still startling enough to make her head snap up. 

“No,” Yen shook her head, aware he had not intended that question to sting so much. “I’m a friend of...” _Her guardian’s? Her father’s?_ “Geralt’s.” 

“My apologies, I had assumed from Ciri’s drawings... Nevermind.” He smiled, his expression kind, before he led her down the corridor towards the toddler playroom. 

_Her drawings?_

The spark of grief that had turned to a flame in her heart died the moment Ciri’s eyes found her’s, watching as the little girl climbed onto her feet before rushing towards her, smiling almost uncontrollably as she heard the sound of her own name spoken by the voice of a three-year-old that seemed unjustly happy to see her.

“Hey,” And she wasn’t sure how it happened, but Yen suddenly found her arms holding a toddler over her hip for the first time in her life, reacting on what she assumed was instinct as the little girl raised her hands towards her, asking. But _oof_ , she hadn’t expected Ciri to be so heavy - _how did Geralt manage this_? But then she recalled the mountain range of his muscles in her mind, and the question seemed obsolete. “Geralt couldn’t come because he has to help people at work.” 

“Okay,” Ciri seemed as bothered as a duck in the rain. Before she pointed to where she’d left Kelpie on a table standing guard over a collection of wobbly sketched animals and what Yen guessed might have been humans but it was hard to tell. “I made some things.” 

Yen set Ciri down as she began to wriggle, scurrying over to pack away her belongings into her purple backpack hanging on a peg on the wall to the right-hand side of the doorway. Linking her hand through Yen’s as she returned, in a way that seemed easy for Ciri but that Yen was still allowing herself to become accustomed to. But the little girl's hand was so stupidly and adorably small in hers, so she wasn’t going to complain.

“I made for you.” Ciri declared, handing Yen one of her doodles. 

“For me?” Yen asked, genuinely taken aback, her eyes trying to make sense of the image she’d just been gifted. _Was that a giraffe?_ “Ciri it’s -” _Quite awful, frankly,_ Yen smiled. “It’s beautiful.” 

“We’re at the zoo,” Ciri explained, the shapes and lines becoming more distinguishable to Yen’s mind the moment she said it. A ring of animal-like patterns encompassing three stick figures, one of which, she hoped was supposed to be Ciri, but could have just as easily been a penguin. And the larger two - one with dark hair and the other with white, that looked suspiciously like they were holding hands. 

_Oh,_ Yen thought. But Ciri was tugging her out the door before she even had the clarity to ask. To say anything. 

* * *

Yennefer listened on the walk home. She was aware that she had been, but her thoughts were wayward and cloud-bound as the toddler narrated her day alongside her. Nodding and humming in response through a mind that seemed to have stalled, and a brain that didn’t want to start up again. _Was it possible to experience emotional vertigo?_

And then she found herself standing outside her apartment, shuffling with her keys, Ciri waiting beside her looking only slightly puzzled that this wasn’t the front door she was used to, when it dawned on Yen that she was about to babysit, for the first time, _alone._

 _But she’d be fine_ , she reasoned, as the door clicked open - so long as the three-year-old following her inside had sated her use of emotional bombshells for the day.

_She’d be fine._


	12. Chapter 12

Yennefer was not really sure how in the whole month that Ciri had been living upstairs, neither her nor Geralt had thought to mention the existence of the purring cotton ball that had taken the initiative to first introduce them. To Ciri, the cat didn’t yet exist. 

So, when Yen pushed through the door and found Cally sitting, casual and sleepy, atop the backrest of her couch in line of sight of the three-year-old at her heels, Ciri’s sudden, yet restrained squeak of ‘kitty!’ wasn’t much of a surprise. 

The surprise came from how cautiously Ciri approached the blinky eyed tortoiseshell. And how careful she was with her hands as she reached out to pet her. Gentle, not grabby - in a way that told Yen the little girl had most likely been around cats before.

Cally, if anything, looked just as besotted as Ciri. The noise of her chest sounding like she was determined to create her own personal earthquake, as the toddler reached out a hand for Cally to headbutt. _You sappy little thing, Cally._ All concerns about keeping the infant entertained falling out of her mind as Yen watched them, a sapling of a smile growing on her face. 

And then she wondered, in between taking off her coat and throwing her bag down onto the kitchen island to her right of the open plan living space. “Ciri. Have you had a cat before?” 

“Mmhmm.” The little girl hummed in affirmation, replying happily. “Mousesack!” 

“Who was Mousesack?” Yen asked, making her own way into the living room before sitting beside where Ciri had clambered over the front cushions of the couch to better reach where Cally had been dozing. The little girl's vision now overwhelmed with mottled black and ginger fur.

“Mommy’s cat,” Ciri explained simply, the unabashed honesty of it making Yen’s feet freeze for the heartbeats it took to make sure Ciri wasn’t visibly upset by the topic. “Mousie came to Grandma’s.”

“He lived with you in your grandmother’s house?” 

“Yeah,” Ciri nodded, still delicately fussing over the cat’s chin as Cally tilted her head to an angle. “He was a good boy, very fluffy.”

“Where is he now?” Yennefer asked, slow, careful, her heart stopping in her chest as she witnessed Ciri’s hands still - only for a moment.

“Gone,” Ciri admitted simply. “Gone like grandma. Lots of flowers in the garden after.” 

Yen bit her tongue, hoping it would stop her from walking over any more graves. Her heart breaking a little in recognition of how effortless it seemed for Ciri to talk about; all that loss had no right sounding so mundane from the mouth of such a young child. And Yen’s heart had frayed enough for one day.

“Are you hungry?” Yen asked, aware she was having far more trouble keeping herself composed than Ciri appeared to be, as she attempted the unsubtle change of topic. Accepting the distraction as Ciri nodded in agreement, before Yen retreated to the kitchen.

* * *

_God, what did toddlers eat?_ Carrot sticks and chicken nuggets seemed so cliche and decadent that Yennefer was pretty sure Triss would have stolen back one of her self appointed gold stars at the mere sight of it. But the concept was no help really, because her kitchen was currently empty of both. 

Yen couldn’t imagine Ciri would be particularly fussy. She lived with Geralt, she couldn’t be - or the girl playing with a cat in her living room would have been little more than a skeleton. Yen might have to teach him, she realised. Her eyes catching over Ciri’s drawing that she had pinned onto the refrigerator door, something pink making itself known in her cheeks. 

Before Yen tied her hair up, and began to cook.

* * *

Perhaps she’d been mistaking expectation for hope, but the sudden maelstrom of anarchy barging through her front door was not something she’d been anticipating. And suddenly Philipa was in her living room. And then Triss, and Renfri. It was a small mercy there weren’t _more_ of them. _God,_ why _had she given Triss a key?_

“What’s up asshole?” Philippa began, grinning as though the bottle of wine in her hand wasn’t just a prop. _Oh here we go,_ Yen cursed to herself. “Feels like we haven’t seen you in weeks you reclusive bitch -” But her tirade shattered the moment her eyes were drawn to Ciri as Yen moved to cover her ears. Her words stumbling. “Fuck...” 

“Stunning execution there, Phil.” Refrin acknowledged. “But in future, maybe when you're digging through that pitiful excuse of a vocabulary you have for yourself, you might want to re-analyse what you classify as kid-friendly.” 

“Are you done?” Yen asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Philippa nodded, only slightly sheepish, before moving to set the bottle down on the countertop as if in commitment to her promise. 

Removing her hands from over Ciri’s ears as Triss, beaming like a flower meadow in summer, moved to kneel in front of the little girl Yen had been moment’s away from serving dinner to. But it was still in the oven. It could wait a few minutes.

“You must be the legendary Ciri?” Triss inquired, the toddlers energetic nodding confirming the question a heartbeat later. “Yen has told me a lot about you.” 

Ciri’s eyes seemed to be fixated on the braid woven through the red of Triss’s hair, her hand reaching out carefully, slowly, to touch it.

“Do you like it? Triss asked, her next question aimed just as much at Ciri as at Yen. “Maybe I could do one for you one day?”

“What are you guys even doing here?” She sighed, trying to mask over her amusement at their ambush.

“We were at Triss’s contemplating whether we actually wanted to go out tonight,” Renfri explained. “When this one decided, while she was already a glass down, that we should, as she put it, ‘check in on you’. I’ll admit I only agreed because I thought it wasn’t going to be quite as disruptive as that. Sorry Yen.” 

“We were feeling a tad abandoned,” Phillipa added. “Since you’ve been spending all your time in this bubble of domestic bliss you’ve found for yourself. And I must say, all this coziness is positively hideous.”

Yen stammered, crossing her arms. “I hardly think that’s fair. Philippa, you have a wife. And a son.” 

“And I love them both dearly,” Phil shrugged. “So much it’s nauseating. But you have been ignoring your friends.” 

“Are you cooking? Renfri asked, leaning over the island before peering into the steamed up oven. 

Yen sighed, glancing toward Ciri who seemed nothing but animated by the sudden and unexpected arrival of more friends. She might regret this, but she asked anyway. “Do you guys - Do you want to stay for dinner?” 

* * *

Yen was clueless, she’d known that, but it took Philippa pointing it out for her to realise Ciri might struggle to use the fork she’d been given. Though she bravely started to try. It took them another few minutes of rummaging through the kitchen to find something appropriately chubby handled. Yen had to stop herself from kissing the top of the little girl’s head as she apologised, setting down the replacement on the table in front of where Ciri was propped up on a bundle of cushions. 

Triss helped her in the sink afterward, watching as Philippa and Renfri amused Ciri with the gallery of tattoos over their skin. But her friend kept smiling beside her, and if she were trying to be inconspicuous about it she was failing miserably. Yen turned to her, raising an eyebrow in a near fed up question. 

“You’re in love.” Triss said simply. 

“What are you talking about?” Yen hadn’t kept it a secret that she’d finally told Geralt, that wasn’t new. 

“Your face melts every time you look at her.” Triss explained softly. “It reminds me of how you looked at Cally when you first brought her home, when she was still a stumbling, bouncing kitten. But multiplied by about a hundred.” 

_Oh._

"And don't spend an age denying it this time Yen. That little girl is besotted with you, and by the sounds of it, this is the closest she’s ever gotten to experiencing what it’s like to be part of a normal family.”

“Normal families are overrated,” Yen countered, but the conviction in her voice had turned gentle.

“I won’t argue with that,” Triss nodded, drying off the last of the plates before she met Yen’s eyes again. Her expression attentive, honest, as she spoke. “Ciri deserves this Yen, and so do you and Geralt - whatever shattered mosaic version of family you can create for yourselves.”

_I know._

Triss seemed to read Yen’s understanding from her eyes, the candor of it tying up Yen’s tongue as she nodded faintly, watching her friend place the last of the utensils back in the drawer. “Good. Because you’ve missed out on the last three movie nights and I’m pretty sure Phil is gonna strangle you if you don’t make it up to her.” She said, pointing over to where Renfri had already commandeered control of the television, beginning to browse through the never-ending realms of Disney with Ciri sat on her lap. 

“What happened to going out?” Yen said, amusement raising her eyebrows. 

“Going out is overrated.” Triss gave her a cheeky grin, before tugging her out of the kitchen and towards the conversation in the living room. 

“Ciri definitely needs to meet Dara.” Renfri was saying. “Don’t you think that would be so cute?”

“In theory yes,” Philippa began. “But unfortunately the little darling is going through what he's calling a ‘grown-up’ phase and now considers playdates with anyone younger than him to be an insult. At four years old he’s finally found his abrasive side. We’re trying to teach him out of it. But I think the transition to ‘big kids school’ has gone to his head and now if we left him in a room with a three-year-old he’d probably throw a tantrum.” 

“I’m three and a half,” Ciri interjected, holding up her counted fingers with as much indignancy as her little face could manage. 

“My sincerest apologies Ciri, I had no idea.” Phil responded, and though her tone was lighthearted there was nothing mocking about it. 

“What do you guy’s think about Frozen?” Renfri asked, indicating to the screen she’d been browsing.

Philippa cut in immediately. “Renfri, if you value Yen’s soul you will keep that little girl a million miles away from that godforsaken film.” 

Ren raised her hands in defeat. “Any other suggestions?” 

“Ciri what do you think?” Yen asked, though the little girl seemed far more interested in adventuring through the beads and bracelets decorating Ren’s wrist than the tv.

Yennefer watched as she shrugged. “Grandma don’t like movies.” 

“Do you?” 

Ciri just shrugged again, enthralled as Ren untangled one of the chains around her arm and carefully placed it onto the little girls instead. Her smile as bright as sunflowers. 

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but you’re the child expert here Phil,” Renfri admitted, throwing her the remote while Cally pinned her ears back in disdain for the heartbeat it took to land in Phil’s hand. “What’s within safe territory?” 

* * *

Somewhere in amongst Triss’s delicate hands forming a braid into the blonde of Ciri’s hair, the sound of all four of them trying to sing along, and the tv screen becoming dazzled by the glow of lanterns - Ciri fell asleep. Yennefer becoming aware as she felt the three-year-old’s weight shift by her side. Her arm untangling from around the little girl as she noticed her drooping eyes and her head rolling back against the cushions. 

“Uh oh,” Phil whispered, ordering the movie to quieten. “Looks like little one’s all tuckered out.” 

Yennefer tried not to let her eyes turn too sappy when Ciri’s tiny and sleepy arms moved to hold onto her as she picked her up. The little girl’s cheek falling languidly against her shoulder. _It couldn’t be that late could it?_

“I think we’ve outstayed our welcome girls.” Philippa nudged the others onto their feet. Herding them reluctantly out the door before sharing a supportive goodbye smile to Yen as she carefully carried Ciri to her bedroom. 

Ordinarily, Yen had enough trouble trying to get _herself_ to bed, but the little girl in her arms was already half asleep as she tucked her in, settling the warmth of the duvet back over the infant before kneeling down on the floor beside her. Resting her chin on one arm over the mattress as she watched Ciri's eyes flicker under her eyelids. Yennefer's hand moving to brush the hair from her sleeping face, observing as the little girl's nose twitching slightly like a rabbit's, but not waking from the contact - as Yen realised, doing nothing to fight the feeling blooming in her chest, that there would really be no turning back from this. 

* * *

It was dark by the time her phone finally told her he was coming home. Materialising at her front door a moment later - she must have fallen asleep on the couch - Cally’s purring tended to do that, as the noise of the doorbell startled her back to consciousness. But it was technically only eight pm, her watch informed her. 

He looked drained. Rushed and breathy as she opened the door. “Sorry, I’m so late.” 

“Where have you been?” Yen asked, the inquiry more amused than anything, as she let him step into her apartment. 

“That trial was a mess, one of the witnesses decided it would be a brilliant idea to get in a fist fight with the defendant - it was probably the first case I’ve been to that we’ve had to call in the police to restrain someone other than the accused.” He let out a deep, weary, breath. “But thank you for looking after Ciri. How is she?” 

“She’s fine,” Yen reassured. “Sleeping.”

“Has she eaten?” Geralt asked, with enough paternal concern that the smile on her face started to spread up into her eyes. 

Yen nodded, beginning to lead him to the bedroom as she hushed her voice. “She met some of the others today. Cally. Phil, Triss and Renfri. We had a bit of a girl’s night.” 

She watched as he smiled at that, laughing gently. “Thank you, Yen. A thousand times over, I would have been colossally stuck if you hadn’t agreed to help.” 

“It’s really not a problem, Geralt.” She replied quietly, moving into the dark of the room where Ciri was sleeping. _Of course it’s not, how does he not realise that yet?_ “And the girls have unanimously agreed to invite her to join us for Tuesday movie nights. If you’re happy for her to?”

Yen observed as he slipped his arm under the sleeping infant, carefully shifting her weight and the bundle of small, sleeping limbs against his chest. “I’m sure she’d love to. As long as you really don’t mind?”

She had to restrain her eyes from rolling at the obliviousness of it, a baffled but fond smile lighting up her face as she whispered. “Of course I don’t mind, you idiot.” 

* * *

She followed them upstairs. Though she didn’t really need to, and was struggling to articulate to herself why she’d felt it necessary.

Geralt’s arms didn’t suffer as Yen’s had as he carried Ciri up the steps with what seemed like an unfair amount of ease. Yen tried to make her clenching jaw behave. But it was a constant and pointless endeavour, as she held Ciri’s daycare backpack in one hand, running her hands through Kelpie’s plush main as a semi-successful distraction. 

Until Ciri was tucked back into her own bedding again, bundled underneath the comfort of familiar cotton sheets and soft fleece blankets, Yen remembering to place the teddy on guard beside her pillow. 

She felt Geralt tug at her hand, pulling her affectionately out of the bedroom before he switched Ciri’s light off and clicked the door shut behind them. 

Yen’s head fell against his chest, nuzzling into the spot under the crook of his neck. The proximity had made it easy. And she hadn’t felt like battling away the need. His arms hugging around her lower back a moment later, a quiet and content sigh escaping Yen’s chest as he pulled her tighter, closer, against him. _He’s so warm_ , a sleepy part of her mind registered.

“I feel like I’ve been neglecting you a bit.” He admitted, finding her confused face moving to look up at him. 

“I feel like you’ve been neglecting _yourself_.” She countered after a few moments, before shrugging. “But parenting’s hard, we’ll get into the rhythm of it eventually.” 

She hadn’t really noticed that she’d said it, though he picked up on it immediately - making no discernable sign of recognition as she buried her nose back into his neck. 

She grumbled in protest as he pulled away. Her interest spiking as he took her hand again, an invitation, a question, as he coaxed her across the living room by the tip of her fingers. Towards his bedroom. 

And if there was any war here at all she’d already surrendered months ago. As she stepped forward to kiss him, confident and fearless and smiling. 

* * *

What saint had they been trying to please by waiting so long?

Nothing but sin was playing with them now, as he settled the weight of his body into the cradle of her hips. Her back dipping into the mattress, feeling the yards of lean muscle under the palm of her hand. 

His movements lazy, but not careless, as he brought a whole galaxy of stars to life in her head, the ghost of his mouth leaving a constellation of purple marks over her skin and whispers of I love you left in traces down her neck. 

And god, she had missed this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't forget to kudos and comment if you enjoyed, if you had any favorite lines or moments I'd love to hear them. Also still excepting prompts if anyone has anything specific they'd like to read in future chapters :D


	13. Chapter 13

They had set no strict tradition to their Saturdays, Yen reminded herself, glancing down to the watch on her wrist for the hundredth time. But the outings had sunk so easily into habit over the last few months that she found herself lost. Waiting for the knock at her door, the sound of his deep but joyful ‘good morning’ and the bright-eyed smile of greeting from the toddler at his feet. 

Cally gave a chirp of annoyance as Yen slumped onto the couch next to where the cat had been curled up. Glancing down at her hand, but her phone only pointed out the fact he still hadn’t messaged. Her mind acknowledging the empty notification panel and fighting over whether it wanted to turn her face disgruntled or sad. 

_Where were they?_

Matching her sleeping schedule to that of a three-year-old was not a trial Yen volunteered herself to freely, she’d woken up early for this. And had now been waiting for hours.

A heavy sigh escaped her chest at the truth that perhaps assumption wasn’t being her friend. They hadn’t always been regular with their weekends. Missed days slipping past due to the distraction of other commitments - though the movie nights had remained in place every single Tuesday like clockwork, and it wasn’t unusual to impulsively arrange to share dinner between the three of them on occasion. But he couldn’t really be that much of an oblivious idiot to think she wouldn’t want at least some sort of confirmation, could he? True their plans had never been chiseled in stone, but her mind had always been softer. 

Yen kicked on her slippers. Letting the front door swing closed behind her as she found her way to the stairwell. 

* * *

_They’re definitely in._ The sound of Ciri’s wailing was evidence enough, though one of Yen’s eyebrows raised at the recognition of another, remarkably _more_ jarring noise as she walked down the hallway.

_Was that the fire alarm?_

She paused outside his door, hands a moment away from searching for the new addition to her keychain as she braced herself for the apparent tidal fight she’d stumbled into, her other brow joining its friend. 

Geralt’s eyes found Yen’s immediately after she’d urged the door open, discovering him on his knees outside the stubbornly closed entrance to Ciri’s bedroom. The tantrumed crying from inside explaining very little as he sent Yen a look she could only interpret as ‘help’ while amusement took over her cheeks. 

It wasn’t hard to locate the source of the burning - her nose leading her through to the kitchen where the poor man had clearly attempted to make cupcakes.

The windows pried open and the alarm manipulated into submission, Yennefer returned to where Geralt was now sitting with his forehead against the oak of the door, calling out the little girls name, softly, pleading. But the wailing didn’t stop.

“What happened?” Yen asked, alarmed bemusement thick in her voice.

“We finally got booked in for an adoption hearing.” He admitted, his face still leaning pitifully against the door. “I tried to explain what it meant but I don’t think she understood. She said she didn’t want to go back, and she’s been like this ever since I told her - like a complete idiot, - that we _had_ to.”

Yen blinked, though the news wasn't unexpected “And what’s with the cupcakes?”

“Well, it seemed to work last time,” He said, turning to face her as she waited for him to elaborate. “Didn’t you say something along the lines of ‘the world always seems slightly less shitty with a belly full of food?’”

“Yeah,” She nodded, fond amusement lighting up her eyes. “ _Food_ , Geralt. Not coal charred disasters.” 

Had she ever seen him so broken? Her memory was lending her no help as she took his hand, before tugging him onto his feet. 

“What do we do?” He asked, the crying from behind the door painful on her ears and stinging at her heart.

“Quite frankly Geralt, I think this is way beyond either of our expertise, we’re gonna have to enlist the help of a professional.” 

* * *

"Ciri," Yen called through the door five minutes later after a reconnaissance mission back to her own apartment. "Cally would like to talk to you." 

The cat in question has been smuggled through the corridors more discreetly this time, now perched on Geralt's couch and visibly discontent with the enforced relocation during the peak of her midday nap. 

Yen listened as the little girls crying mellowed to sniffles behind the door. Her ears keen to the sound of padding feet over wooden floorboards before the lock clicked open. Ciri nudging the door ajar by only a couple of inches, a blanket draped over her shoulders like a cape, her cheeks sodden and eyes red. 

A fight was blazing behind the little girl’s expression, a reluctance to step outside against a need to rush over towards the kitty that her line of sight had caught on. 

It was the latter that won out. 

It was almost comical, watching as Ciri bumbled towards the couch before climbing up and shoving her face straight into Cally’s fur in much the same way Yen had the night she’d ran away from Geralt’s ‘I love you.’ But the sight was too heartbreaking to feel anything else. 

“What exactly did you say to her?” Yen asked, her voice hushed.

“I told her we had to go to one last hearing, and after another few minutes of explaining what that word even meant I guess it clicked in her head that we would need to go back to the courthouse.” He replied just as quietly, before taking an exhausted breath. “But I don’t know how to explain to her that this isn’t a custody dispute, but a finalisation.” 

“Have you tried not using big lawyer words?” Yen inquired, trying to keep her tone playful and managing to steal a faint smile from where he’d been hiding them. It was a small victory at least. “Does she have to be there? In the room, when it happens?”

“Yeah,” He nodded, resignation written all over his face. “But every time she’s been before it's always ended with her being moved around again. I don’t know how to tell her that she’s staying for good, that she gets to stay here with me.” 

“Well, tell her that. As simply as you did just then.” 

She watched him hesitate, noticed the slump in his shoulders and the look of mistrust on his face, the expression aimed at himself more than anyone else. 

“Now isn’t the time to let your insecurities overwhelm your parenting, Geralt," Yen told him gently. "You're getting too tangled up in whether or not you're doing the right thing the right way or if it should even be you to do it, while Ciri’s thinking her whole life’s about to be turned upside down again. So, don’t you dare start to doubt this.” 

He seemed to acknowledge the truth in that, as he slowly took a step towards where Ciri had attempted to camouflage herself and the cat underneath her blanket. 

"Ciri, sweetheart." He called out to her gently, kneeling down beside the couch. "You know that no one wants to take you away this time, don't you? That you can stay here with me, forever, if that's what you want."

Ciri's face appeared from underneath her fleece-lined barricade, Cally's nose kissing against the dampness of the tear falling down her cheek, before she spoke, her voice cracking. "You'll go." 

"I'm not going anywhere." Geralt reassured, his voice slow and soft. "I promise." 

One of her tiny fists rubbed against the redness of her eye before she spoke. "Grandma promised too." 

_Oh, Ciri._ Yen hadn't even been aware there was anything in her heart left to break, watching as Geralt desperately turned back towards her, the request for aid clear on his face. But she didn't have anything to counter that either, this demon clearly wasn't new and had probably been growing for a while. 

"Your grandma wanted so, so much to be able to stay with you, Ciri." Geralt turned back to the distressed three-year-old, pleading. "And she did everything possible to make sure you'd be okay if she couldn't be with you any longer." 

The little girl's face became lost to the blanket once again. 

"Ciri," Yen attempted, taking a breath before joining Geralt beside the couch. She had one card left to play, but she wasn't sure which way the game would tip if she used it. "Was it just you and your grandmother in your home before?" 

Ciri didn't respond, but Geralt's nod was all the confirmation she needed. 

"You know your family is so much bigger now, don't you?" Yennefer began. "There are so many people here that love you. Geralt. Me. Triss, Renfri and Phil; you're never gonna have to be left alone anymore." 

Cally chirped from underneath the blanket, and it almost sounded like muffled agreement. Or maybe she was complaining, it was hard to tell.

"You have a whole world here to support you, sweetheart, but we need you to be brave just one more time. Okay?" Yen finished, feeling like the tide had settled as she heard Ciri's breathing turn even, less raged. 

“Okay,” Ciri managed mutely, sitting herself upright. 

“Good,” Yen smiled, her hands moving so that her thumbs could brush away the last of the tears streaming down the three-year-olds face. “Because Geralt clearly needs the two of us to teach him how to make cupcakes. And I managed to dig out some ingredients from my apartment to replace what he’s sabotaged. Would you like to help?”

Ciri nodded before slipping off the cushions until her toes touched the floorboards. Wrapping her tiny arms around Geralt’s torso, her head only just fitting under the crook of his neck despite him being knelt down. 

Before moving towards Yen. The little girl's arms opening and hugging around her before she had the chance to contemplate what was happening. Giving in to the warmth of it as she closed her eyes and held her back. 

Ciri let go after a few slow heartbeats, shuffling towards her bedroom with Cally held limp but content in her little arms. As Yen noted that the little girl hadn’t even changed out of her pajamas yet. 

Geralt’s eyes returned to Yen, his expression indebted, fond, in a way that was almost difficult to look at, her heart swelling so much it nearly felt laborious to breathe.

“I don’t know what brand of heroics you were trying to pull by going silent on me all morning.” Yen stated, her hands fidgeting. “But I’m in, Geralt. Completely. For the good days and the bad.”

He nodded slowly, somehow both taken aback yet unsurprised. “Okay.”

“And for the sake of that child’s soul, you really need to take a cooking class,” She declared, pushing up onto her own feet before extending him an arm. “Lucky for you, I don’t charge.” 

Her smile was mirrored on his face as he found his feet, laughing quietly as he leant towards her, foreheads almost touching. “Alright, deal.” 

And then he kissed her. Dawdled and slow like a summer morning as his hand curved delicately around her face so the v of his thumb settled just under her ear, and she was sure she could feel the ‘thank you’ on the tip of his tongue. 

She pulled away, smiling, as Ciri appeared back in the open doorframe, now dressed - either oblivious or unbothered as she took Yen’s hand and pulled her through to the kitchen. 

Yen glanced back over her shoulder, noting both the way Geralt’s whole face was lit up like the sun and the truth that things were probably going to feel very, very different from now on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please keep commenting guys, it lets me know you're still enjoying! ❤️


	14. Chapter 14

There was an intimacy to it - though still a foreign one to Yennefer, in being able to share his bed without actually, biblically, _sharing his bed._ A brand of coziness she was still letting herself get used to. In the quiet moments of the morning when she was alone in the world, habit making her wake minutes before her work alarm and allowing her the chance to just watch him sleep - to enjoy the simplicity of being here with him.

It happened too easily now, at the end of evenings spent chasing after the cataclysm that was the blonde three-year-old now living with him, that Geralt’s bed just seemed so much more attractive than Yen’s. Mostly because it was closer, she told herself. And Cally, more often than not, joined them in the evenings anyway so it wasn’t like she had any commitment or need to return to her own apartment. 

But Ciri had so far had remained oblivious. The excuse of the clinic allowing Yen to slip out long before she technically needed to, and she might have been lying to Geralt about her work hours - just a tiny bit. But maybe he’d subtly cleared out a compartment of his drawers in the hopes she’d be brave enough to casually adopt the space, though nothing was spoken out loud. So perhaps she wasn’t the only one being sneaky. It wasn’t fair, she knew, to try to classify their behavior under the same tree, when his had been far more welcoming than hers. She was trying. But she still felt on wobbly legs about the whole situation. 

It was Friday night that tripped her. Waking up warm and dozy under the soft cotton of his bedding, and wearing pajamas that were probably the most sinless thing she owned, her arms stretching out to release the sleep from her limbs and finding the heat of his bare torso across the mattress. Something like a smile playing over her sleep-addled face that she buried it into the crook of her elbow. He wasn’t awake yet, she could feel it in his breathing. But it took her a few more slow heartbeats to become conscious of the fact sunlight was streaming in through the curtains. Far, far too brightly. 

Her head shot up of the pillows. _What time was it?_ Scrambling to find her phone sat over the bedside cabinet, the truth of it becoming clear to her. 

_It was the weekend. She had no alarm._

She felt the bed shift, the matress dipping as Geralt rolled closer, his eyes stubbornly refusing to open but she could tell now that he’d awoken, even if only partially. The feel of his arm tangling around her side only further proof of that; he tended to be more cuddly when still half under the clouds of sleep. 

But his arms had always been unfairly big, and she couldn’t help but feel trapped under the weight of it, unaware if that had been his intention or not. 

“Geralt,” She protested, his reply little more than a grumble. “I need to get up.”

“No, you don’t.” He countered, slow and lazy, his eyes still closed. “It’s a Saturday. Your Saturdays are with us.” 

She didn’t have anything to fight against that, other than the fact their Saturdays had been left practically redundant now that she spent more time here than not. 

“What about Ciri, what if she sees me here?” 

“I hardly think Ciri is going to mind that she gets to have breakfast with the both of us for once.” He said, his voice low and gentle yet somehow retaining his usual roughness. She found herself hypnotised occasionally - when he spoke, but this time she didn’t push away the feeling. Allowing herself to settle back against the bed as she conceded. Moving to snuggle up against him as she ignored the warnings in her mind that perhaps this was a little bit too comfortable. 

_I don’t care. I don’t care,_ the thought brazen and loud in retaliation. Because his chest was so warm; her head tucked under the crook of his neck so perfect, and the feel of his arms wrapped around her so right. Letting the awareness bloom in her chest until the words were falling out of her mouth without even the slightest taste of friction she’d grown accustomed to. 

“I love you.” She felt him laugh slightly at the admission, a soft sound - happy rather than mocking. 

“I love you too,” He repeated. “And thank you for staying, I’d been missing you.” 

Yen winced, she hadn’t even considered that. “I’m sorry.” 

He hummed lightly in response, the vibrations of it thrumming through the palm of her hands where they were placed carefully against his chest. She moved them lower. Exploring - but innocently, as her fingertips danced over the ridge of jagged pale skin crossing his torso.

“Your hands are cold you know,” He said, his tone playful, and she could almost hear the smile on his face. 

Her fingers tapped against the ruins of his scar as she spoke, her voice careful. “You never told me how you got these.” 

Geralt shifted. Moving to face her, something unsettled tainting the softness that had been in his eyes a moment before. “It’s not quite as heroic as you might imagine.”

“Heroics are overrated.” Yen shrugged. 

He smiled at that, but the expression was dulled, his chest rising and falling slowly before he spoke. “That particular one was a gift from barbed-wire. I think it was in my second home, I was only twelve, and one of the older boys decided to make a game out of kicking the neighbour’s dog. I tried to stop him. So he shoved me into the wire fence and turned _me_ into his personal football instead.”

He moved her again, and although her eyes had seen all his marks before, her hands had never felt brave enough to investigate like this.

Yen’s hand settled against the uneven skin over his neck as he guided her. “This one's from the woman who called herself my birth mother. She had a fondness for discipline, drinking, and the sting of belt buckles. I have no memory of it, I was too little at the time and it took me years to understand it was one of the reasons I got pulled out of there in the first place." 

Yen grimaced, trying to make her hands soft against his skin, as gentle and reassuring as she was capable. His guidance delicate, and his worlds calm despite how vulnerable he was allowing himself to be.

“These,” Her hand was moved towards the flesh of his bicep, over a chain of ringed marks unhidden by the bedsheets. “Were from home two. The so-called dad there liked to smoke, and I guess I was closer than the ashtray.”

“This one,” He moved her hand down to his leg. “Was from home three. Turns out trying to climb through a window after using a brick to shatter the glass isn’t such a great idea. They were decent people, but my foster parents were supremely pissed off with the medical bill, and for the window replacement. So moved me on a week later before the stitches had even healed.” 

She felt him reposition her touch to his abdomen, the flesh here the harshest of all of them. “And this one is the ticket that got me sent to Vesemirs. I got shot. It was my fault entirely, I was foolish and reckless and far too happy to go searching for fights where I shouldn’t have been. So they sent me to work on the ranch.” 

“How old were you?” Yennefer asked.

“Fifteen,” Geralt admitted. “Vesemir saved my life; between school, homework, and chores I didn’t have any time left to go looking for trouble.”

“Well, that all sounds very heroic to me,” Yennefer smiled gently, pulling her hand away, feeling like she’d pried open enough old wounds for the day. The honesty of it was forming a lump in her throat. “You might have lost fights or made stupid choices. But people hurt you, and you survived anyway.” 

It was less of a question now, she realised, as to why he’d been so adamant to bring Ciri home. “I’m sorry all that happened to you.” 

He watched her for a moment, a beat longer than she was comfortable with before the ache in his eyes fell away. “Maybe we could all visit one day.”

“Where?” Her forehead creased.

“Vesemir’s,” Geralt answered. “It’s up north, the countryside’s beautiful there and I’m pretty sure he has a mare remarkably similar to Kelpie that Ciri would love.” 

Yen went quiet for a moment, trying to stifle the warmth taking over her chest, before she nodded, her voice muted. “Okay.” 

They both turned at the sound of a door opening, distant, the noise from across the other side of the living room. 

“I think that’s our curtain call,” Geralt mumbled. “And if my estimate’s correct we have about twenty seconds before-”

And then Ciri was at the very-much-now-open door. Her expression unfairly wide awake and showing no sign of the startlement that was riddled all over Yen’s as she bolted upright, though the little girl did pause for a moment, her grasp still caught on the door handle, Kelpie tucked under her arm.

“Uh…” Yen whispered, glancing towards Geralt who’s whole face seemed bright with amusement.

“Good morning, Ciri,” He greeted, his voice warm, calm. “You hungry?”

Ciri nodded, stepping towards them without a single inch slowed by apprehension. “You promised pancakes.”

“I remember,” Geralt acknowledged, returning Yennefer’s alarmed look with something that was both reassuring and exceedingly fond. “Do you want me to make them, or would you rather Yen did?” 

Ciri didn’t take long looking for an answer, though the reply she gave wasn’t verbal. Wordlessly padding across the floor towards where Yennefer was perched at the edge of the mattress, the little girl decidedly taking Yen’s hand and tugging onto her feet, leading her towards the kitchen with a smile as bright as the sunrise. 

It was almost an unbalancing realisation for Yen, that she didn't think she'd ever been around another human being that was so honestly and openly happy to spend time with her. Her eyes landing back on Geralt’s, unwavered by all the affection she found there, as she sent him a raised and bemused eyebrow. 

And maybe he'd been right - and maybe Yen was finally considering claiming the empty space in his drawer. But Ciri had her attention now, and pancakes had never taken more precedence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again guys! I disappeared for a little break, but I'm (hopefully) back regularly now 😅 Let me know what you think ❤️ and huge thank you to MichiMe for your help on this one x


	15. Chapter 15

The presence of a toddler had made itself home so surreptitiously through Geralt's living space that when Yen had first noticed, she'd wondered if he was even aware of the sheer amount of infant-like colour that sat in the stacks of plastic plates in his cupboard. If the stickers, and letters, and drawings sprawled over the refrigerator door had found themselves there without his notice, joining seamlessly with the dullness of what had been there before. Or if it had so simply and so quickly become a new normal. 

And then there was the toddler step. Which was a stupid thing, Yen acknowledged, to have been so overwhelmingly endeared about. Ciri was barely eye level with the white granite of the kitchen countertops, the extra height just about making it possible for Yen, as she stood behind her, to tie the ridiculously small apron around the infants waisted before navigating the Ciri's hands as they gripped determinedly around the wooden mixing spoon. Flour powdered, miraculously, over only one of the little girls cheeks as the contents of the mixing bowl were haphazardly folded together. Yen tried not to laugh as she guided, but it would only have sounded fond if she'd failed.

The three-year-old's hands were far more clumsy than Yen's, unbalanced and unpractised - but Yen was learning that the mess was half the fun of it. The blueberries on the floor seemed happy enough to be there. And the chocolate chips seemed to disappear by the tiny-handful every time Yen turned back to the refrigerator. 

Geralt might have been smiling at them, but Yen only caught a glimpse of it. Her eyes flickering up to where Geralt had been attempting to tidy the living room; she'd seen it alive on his face for only a heartbeat before he'd turned, though that didn't stop the same sentiment lighting up her own expression. 

Yen didn't think she'd ever done something quite so… well,  _ domestic _ . 

Ciri was sat at the table ten minutes later, a chubby knife and fork held in her hands and a look on her face as though she were about to march into the frontlines. The inch of tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth doing nothing at all to dim the expression.

It was probably a tad too much sugar, Yen noted, as she raised an eyebrow at the final arrangement Geralt had made under Ciri's instruction. Yen acknowledged the blueberries - it was an effort at least, but she didn't think it counted for much when they'd been completely drowned in syrup. 

She commented on it as he left Ciri to eat, returning to the kitchen to help Yen clean. 

He nodded with a smile, recognising the concern before he explained. "The promise of pancakes was a distraction from the hearing tomorrow. She's been worrying about it all week, I wanted her to have something to look forward to this weekend, even if it was only small."

Yen's eyes turned from mild contempt to understanding. "But there's nothing that could actually go wrong, right? No hiccups or road bumps that would stop you from being in and out of the courtroom in under an hour?"

They'd been talking quietly, and Ciri seems to busy with her pancakes, but Geralt shushed his voice even further. "There is one little thing," He admitted. "Possibly a thing - arguably quite big, actually."

"Geralt."

He sighed, glancing to check that Ciri was still focused on her breakfast. "Her birth father's been unusually quiet about the whole situation. He's put through no protest regarding the adoption yet, but he’s also made no agreement  _ not _ to." 

"What does that mean exactly?" Yen asked. 

"It means that if he chooses to, he could dispute it at the last minute." Geralt explained. 

He knew - and it was the one thing he was sure of - that no court would ever hand Ciri over to a convicted felon who had, so far, spent so little time around his daughter that he probably wouldn’t even be able to recall the colour of her eyes. No, Emhyr would not take her, but he could make the legalities of the adoption damn difficult. As the little girl’s last living biological parent he retained the power to agitate the authority behind the line in the will that had left Ciri to Geralt. A spanner in the works, Jaskier used to call it. But this would potentially be more like throwing the whole tool kit into the system. 

It would be fine, he told himself, and the worlds had become so familiar over the last few days that they’d lost all meaning. But a lifetime of working with cases exactly like this had taught him that silence from an estranged biological familiar member was rarely a red flag, and leaving word of protest till the very last minute seemed a brand of dramatic that Geralt had never witnessed before. But the slight chance of it was still picking at the back of his mind.

He heard Ciri’s fork clatter to the floor, a sound that wasn’t new, or even particularly alarming. Until his eyes found her’s, vacant as stone as she stared down at something that definitely wasn’t her lost utensil. A gaze that seemed disoriented as it fixed onto and through an innocuous spot on the table. The pancakes forgotten. 

“Ciri?” Yen asked cautiously, nervous, her eyes having followed the sound too. 

_ Had she heard _ , he wondered? His ears noting, in a manner that had his stomach turning to rocks as he approached, that her breathing had turned ragged, heavy.  _ God, was she chocking?  _ But the noise didn’t seem nearly violent enough for that.

“Ciri?” He tried, rushing to kneel beside her, her devoid response making worry flash through his veins. “Ciri, sweetheart?” 

Yen was beside him in an instant, looking just as dumbstruck as Geralt felt. The three years old’s breathing still coming out frayed, the balance behind her eyes off-kilter as she raised her head slightly at their approach. 

“Ciri, what’s happening?” He asked again, fear tainting his attempt to sound soothing. 

“Does she have asthma?” The question came from Yen, the words painted with as much worry as he’d been feeling but restrained by the levelheadedness of someone with a medical background.

The reminder was reassuring. But the question still didn’t get them anywhere, as he shook his head. “No.” 

He watched, trying not to turn frantic as Yen moved to take Ciri’s hand, noticing the tremors in the little girl’s fingers, though it took him a beat to realise that was most likely the cause of the fork on the floor. 

And then Yen moved to pick her up. Lifting the three-year-old carefully out of the chair and holding the little girl against her with one arm as she checked over Ciri’s still absent eyes and brushed the blond hair off her face.

Yen’s expression turned sad. Geralt wasn’t sure if that was more or less comforting than the panic that had been there a moment before. Listening as she spoke, with words that sounded heartbroken. “Geralt, I think we need to go to the hospital.” 

* * *

_Panic attack_. It seemed like such a violent term, as Geralt tried to focus on the remainder of the doctor’s explanations while his heart tied itself into knots. 

Ciri had settled on the cab ride over. Her breathing slowing, her eyes managing to meet theirs again though still dizzy, as if stuck in the delirious moment between nightmare and reality. Before she’d fallen asleep exhausted against Yen’s arm. 

Geralt had carried the three-year-old inside, though she was now awake and sat over the padded examining table, distracted by the array of stickers a nurse had offered her. It had taken him an age to untangle the mess of Ciri’s situation to be able to explain to the medical staff, and his head was helping none.

Had he caused this? Done something wrong? Underestimated the size of the monsters she’d been fighting in her head? What had her grandmother even mentioned of Emhyr, if anything at all? What character could Ciri possibly have formed in her head that would have caused this? A horror born from the credulous imagination of a child - fueled by nothing but hateful stories of a villainous man from the mouth of the women who’d raised her. 

It suddenly didn’t seem like such a question.

The doctor was talking - Yen seemed to be taking more of it in than he was, nodding in response as she listened, something about seeking out a child counselor and other suggestions that were making Geralt’s head spin. He saw the sense in it, but he wished it wasn’t needed. 

There was nothing condemning about the way the doctor spoke, taking note of the tone and attention between the three of them, and every ounce of love hovering between their interactions. 

“I understand this is a new and difficult situation for all of you,” The doctor said gently. “But for now, all you can do is make sure Ciri feels safe and loved - as much as you possibly can. Everything's going to be okay.” 

* * *

The journey back to the house was a solemn one. Pushing through Geralt’s front door to find Cally chirping in newfound annoyance at the audacity that they’d left her alone in the apartment. She couldn’t have been hungry. Ciri’s half-eaten pancakes were now entirely gone, and the culprit had unwittingly left a trail of flour-white pawprints across the table. 

Ciri laughed quietly at the sight of it. “Naughty Cally.”

The sound helped to unravel the strain in his chest as Geralt looked grimly out over the mess of his kitchen. 

“Aren’t you glad the home inspection was last week?” Yen joked. “I’ll clean, I think you two need to have a bit of a talk.” 

Ciri followed Cally to the couch, so Geralt followed Ciri. Perching on his knees in front of where she was sat over the cushions with the cat curled on her lap. 

“Ciri,” He began. “Did you hear me and Yen talking earlier today, about your dad?” 

She nodded meekly, slowly, her hand ranging through Cally’s long fur. 

“Ciri, you know he -” Geralt took a breath, this was perhaps too complicated to explain to a three-year-old. But he could only try. “He’s not going to take you away from me, you don’t have to be scared of him.”

“How do you know?” She asked.

“Because he’s not allowed to have you. You’ll get to stay here with us forever, it just means that…” Would Ciri even understand the difference between a guardian and an adoptive parent? That she was  _ his _ daughter now, but that the formalities of it had yet to be finalized? 

“Your dad.” She said suddenly, and it sounded like she’d found an answer for him but he couldn’t make sense of it. 

“What?” 

“You’re dad,” She repeated, more vehemently now, and he realised that he’d misunderstood her the first time. 

“Oh,” _You really have to stop underestimating her, Geralt,_ he told himself, a smile as bright as the sun taking over his face. “Yeah.” 

* * *

The first breath of the morning felt stilted in his lungs as he became lucid to the fact the trial would be starting in a few hours. 

The cat was sat over his ankles, the weight of it comforting as he came to the conclusion it would be blasphemous to move. Cally had invited herself to his bed after becoming aware of the fact her usual night time companion was absent from the room on the other side of the apartment. 

It hadn't been anyone's suggestion, in particular, it just sort of happened naturally, unprompted. Ciri had fallen asleep between the both of them not long after dinner, and considering the stress of the day neither of the adults felt the desire to stay awake any longer. So, after encouraging Ciri to wake long enough to get changed into her pj's and ready for bed, she'd been carried into their room. And Cally had followed. 

It was near-miraculous that Ciri was still sleeping despite his phone telling him it was almost nine am. She seemed content enough, when Geralt turned to look, cuddled against Yennefer’s body under the soft down of the duvet, the little girl held within Yen’s arms and tucked under the crook of her neck. It was cozy - which was really the only way to describe it. The warmth of the sun dandling over their cheeks as it fell through the curtains above the headboard.

Yen suited this, he thought. When she was just letting herself  _ be, _ without worrying about stepping on anybody’s toes or becoming more in the life of the three-year-old than she thought she deserved to be. But it seemed, he hoped, that she’d finally let the last fraying trace of that insecurity finally break free. 

They were going to need her today. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soz guys 😅 I have absolutely nothing to say for myself. When will the next chapter be up? Who knows 🤷♀️


	16. Chapter 16

Yennefer ran the palm of her hands over the creases of Ciri's dress as she knelt in front of the three-year-old, neatening the furrows out from the waves of soft white. A tapestry of flowers was growing upwards from the hem flowing around the little girl's ankles, a pink frilling ribbon around her waist and secured in a bow at her side. Ciri had picked it out. The previous weekend having been lent to the pursuits of roaming the local shopping mall, Ciri’s clothes were shrinking - Geralt had explained, and something new and colorful for her to parade might help make the hearing seem less grim. 

But Ciri still looked apprehensive, distracted by the teddy in her hands as Yen finished restraining the laces of the little girl’s boots. 

It was quite the combination, this little outfit Ciri had selected, but the contrast of the dress's elegance and the rowdiness of the leather of her shoes seemed to suit the rampant spark behind the little girl's eyes perfectly. 

It was dimmed, but still present, as Ciri's gaze flickered away from Kelpie back up to Yen, who smiled gently at her, watching as the three-year-old attempted to return the expression. Brave, but still nervous. 

“It’s okay to be scared, Ciri. It's a big day,” Yen started, her voice warm, careful. “But know that there's no need to be, everything's going to be alright. We’re here to look after you, and so is Kelpie. Okay?"

Ciri nodded, a small smile lit like an ember in her eyes before she stepped forward, letting her arms enfold tightly around Yen’s shoulders. Surprise from the sincerity of it flooded Yennefer's heart, before she let her own arms snake around the little girl's middle, hugging her back just as tightly. 

"It's going to be alright," Yen repeated. Closing her eyes as she felt Ciri take a few slow breaths of solace before the little girl slowly pulled away. 

“Ready?” Yen asked, moving to tuck the wayward ribbons of blond hair back into place. 

Ciri nodded again, accepting Yennefer’s hand as they returned to the living room. Geralt's phone call was nearing its end as they approached, hearing the sound of his farewell to Eskel. 

"Everything alright?" Yen's asked, feeling Ciri slip away as the three-year-old wandered towards Cally who was perched on the edge of the window cill. 

"Yeah, I think so," He sighed, though his chest still sounded tight. "No hiccups or road bumps in sight for now." 

Yen nodded. "Good." 

"You ready to go, Ciri?" Geralt inquired, glancing toward where the three-year-old had joined the tortoiseshell looking out over the street below lit up with sunshine, the teddy now placed on the ledge beside the cat.

"Yeah," She answered easily, before tottering back towards them. 

"Is Kelpie coming?" He asked - a tone that Yen had learned was more a subtle reminder than a question. 

"No," Ciri replied, unexpected, linking her small hand through Geralt's before reaching out to seek Yen's again as well, the little girls next words making her cheeks flush and her heart soften as she took in their meaning. "Kelpie's staying home today." 

* * *

Yennefer had never been in a courtroom before. This building was as familiar to Geralt as the clinic had become to her, but that didn't stop the overly formal atmosphere feeling a tad suffocating - the white hallways monotonous. Yet the room they were directed to was more colourful than she'd expected, after pushing through the door. And almost too small to sit the entourage that joined them. 

There wasn't a single one of their friends missing. 

Jaskier, shuffling into the left front row of the gallery benches, a notebook in his lap. Apparently this was going to be the most heartwarming story he’d ever published, his journal readers no strangers to Geralt’s feats in the courtroom, they’d all been waiting for this. Yen wasn’t sure Geralt particularly liked the attention. But the stories helped to bring in donations to the pro bono side of the firm so he never outwardly complained. But Ciri, he had conditioned, was only to be referred to using an alias. 

Geralt’s other work colleagues joined the journalist as they sat, for once here to just watch and listen. All apart from Eskel, who located towards the counsel table, preparing the paperwork over the surface of wooden oak. 

And all of Yen's adherents sat to the right; Renfri and Phillipa, Triss, Sabrina and Istredd. Even Dara, who Ciri had met only a few weeks ago during a calamity at the park. Despite both of his mothers’ enlightened encouragement, the four-year-old had initially made a comment about not wanting to play soccer with a _girl_ , at which Ciri had scowled, proceeding to kick the ball hard it into the back of his head as he turned away, making a startlingly loud _thwacking_ sound as it found home. He’d been fine, Yen’s apologies only met with snorted laughter and disregard of ‘he probably deserved that.’ And the two of them had been best friends ever since. 

Yen had insisted they hadn't needed to come; it didn’t really seem necessary. But none had listened. 

Ciri didn't quite seem to understand why Yen wasn't going to be sitting with her and Geralt at the counsel table with Eskel, but continued timidly onward after Yen’s nod of encouragement and Geralt’s light and understanding tug at her hand in his.

* * *

It felt different this time, Ciri thought. There were pretty things on the walls; pictures and artwork and colour. It was brighter, more cheerful. But it wasn't just the room, it was the people in it too; they were all _happy_. Which seemed strange. And so unlike the shadow of the quarrel she’d become accustomed to. 

Maria slipped onto the table beside them. Greeting Ciri with the same bright face that had approached her before their flight together. Ciri didn’t understand who she was specifically, why she was always here - she’d known the lady’s face for as long as she could remember, and had seen it every time things became difficult again. 

But her welcome from Geralt was anything but solemn. “It’s good to see you again, Maria.” 

“Likewise,” She replied, sitting in the chair to the little girl’s right-hand side before her tone turned into something Ciri recognized as cheeky. “Don’t consider me rude, but I really hope this might be the last time.”

And then the strangers walked in, and they seemed jolly too. Not grumpy, or bored, as they had often been before. A lady in a robe moving towards the raised platform before she sat. It almost looked like a wooden throne, Ciri thought. She wanted to sit on it. 

And then everyone was standing, so Ciri did too.

* * *

There were no unfamiliar faces, Geralt noted as his eyes scanned the room; if Emhyr had sent a henchman to cause mayhem, they didn’t appear to be here yet. 

He’d never been so grateful to have Eskel at his side - family law might have been Geralt’s realm of expertise but nerves were forming a fog in his brain and he could hardly think straight, answering the judge’s questions on the trust of autopilot. 

“Cirilla has been living with you for how long now?”

“Three months, your honor.” God, did he sound too stiff? _Do remember to breathe, Geralt._ Did his clients always feel like this?

And then the topic changed; his life, his career, his home. Questions that felt invasive, others that were friendly. Even his relationship with Yen - a topic he couldn’t help but think they might find messy, unstable. But the fact that she was even here, and followed by so many of her friends seemed an avouchment to her commitment in itself. He hoped they’d see it that way too.

“Are there any pets in the household?” The judge asked. He’d always admired the kinder ones, those who were able to break from their normal prosaic demeanor to remember that a child was sat in the room. 

Ciri answered for him, which had perhaps been the intention. “We have a secret cat!” 

The sound of quiet laughter soon spread through the gallery at her reply, Yen’s muffled snort coming from the benches behind. 

The judge turned her attention towards the three-year-old, a smile jugging at the corner of her mouth. “A secret cat? You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of those.” 

“Cally,” Ciri nodded before raising a finger to her lips and shushing. “She’s a secret.”

* * *

Geralt felt Yen’s eyes turn to him, though he didn’t glance back, when the topic of housing was brought up. It was a formality, mostly - a way of earning brownie points. The mere admission of researching quaint little suburban homes with freshly mowed daisy lawns, picket fences, and a mortgage that the mere size of turned him dizzy. It wasn’t a lie to say he had been looking. Considering even. But that wasn’t a fact he’d brought up with Yen yet.

He hoped his admission to the rest of the courtroom didn’t sting, as he made a mental note to talk with her later.

Geralt's soul froze when the conversation turned to the events of the previous day, and how they’d ended up in the hospital. For the first time, the judge’s tone turned castigated, disapproving. 

* * *

Ciri noticed the change, glancing up at him and wondering how someone so large could still get scared. They couldn’t really blame Geralt for what had happened, could they? It was Ciri’s fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong. 

Eskel began talking, and he seemed to ease the situation, something about acting appropriately, seeking out further assistance with the issue, and Maria joined in, careful words of support - but Ciri’s attention was too preoccupied with the pigeon she’d found perched on the outside of the window a few skips away from where they were sat.

Until she became aware that the robed lady was trying to address her directly. 

“Good morning, Ciri.”

She seemed kind, warm, so Ciri returned the greeting, her legs swinging restlessly over the edge of the chair. “Hi.”

“Do you understand what is happening here today?” 

Ciri nodded slowly. This was strange adult business for people in suits and ties, but she’d made sense of it enough.

“And is this what you want?” The question was slow, careful, as if the words themselves were considering whether a three-and-a-half-year-old even had the capacity to know. 

"I want to go home." Ciri admitted. It seemed like the only honest thing to say amongst the boredom. But she didn't like the way it had made Geralt tense beside her. 

The robed lady paused before she asked. "And where is home?" 

_Where is home?_

Ciri thought about it for a moment. Home had moved so many times, but she knew where it was now, and where she wanted it to stay.

Home was the way Cally's toes stretched out over the cotten of her bedding as they woke together under the glow of morning. Home was the sound of Geralt making dinner only for Yen to come and fix it a while later. Home was the park, and the zoo, and by the lakes on the weekends. Home was every Tuesday at Yen's, the living room full of people and snacks and the noise of a movie.

Home was with Geralt, and the way he smiled at the sight of her every time he came to pick her up from daycare. Home was with Yen, sitting beside her at bedtime, warm under the duvet as she learned stories and tales of Kelpie's friends. 

Home was with them.

And so she said that. Though the words were difficult and almost frustratingly slow, but they seemed to understand. She turned in her seat after hearing the muffled sounds of endearment from the people behind as she spoke. Yen looked like she’d just melted inside, watching as Phil nudged playfully at her friend’s ribcage.

Geralt loosened again, his eyes turning warm, Ciri smiled when she noticed, content that she’d said something right.

The lady on the platform softened then, sitting back in her chair. “Alright then.” 

* * *

It seemed unfair to Geralt, cruel even, that the hiccup was left until the very end. Which, it turned out, felt more like being shot in the chest.

"We had word this morning from Ciri's biological father." The judge explained, the silence of the room turning infinitely more still and soundless, waiting the horrifying moments it took her to skim over the notes at her desk. "A letter was left through an envoy a few hours prior stating his agreement to relinquish parental claim of the child under agreement to the same conditions that were in place during the care of her grandmother; in which he demands visitation rights a minimum of once a year." 

_This was a good thing_ , Geralt told himself, while simultaneously forgetting how to breathe.

"However," She continued, his heart thumping audibly in his chest. "Given light of Emhyr’s recent behaviour during the granted probationary period, the court has decided that in no conceivable way would his involvement in the life of this child be a benefit to her upbringing or wellbeing. And as such, the court has decided not to grant these demands."

The tightness in Geralt's chest felt like it had just turned to helium. The little girl beside him frowning as if trying to make sense of the big words she was hearing.

"Furthermore, taking into account the shortcomings over the last eleven months in his attempts to arrange visitation while under the custody of the state and lack of interest in doing so since his release, the court has decided to further declare this a case of abandonment. And as such, Emhyr's parental rights have been legally and indefinitely terminated. The adoption may proceed."

 _Well, that just took five years off my life_ , Geralt thought as he slumped back into his chair, catching sight of Eskel’s subtle nod of emotional support.

This was happening, this way really actually happening. He understood, a part of his brain reminding him of the fact, that the legalities of this would change nothing tangible. It was a formality. A simple set of paperwork to be filled away with an amended name now home beside Ciri's. The judge's words meant little to him in the grand scheme of things - but Ciri's had, and would probably continue to.

He had a daughter. 

But in truth, he'd had a daughter for months now.

* * *

Ciri was given the opportunity to close the hearing. Geralt couldn’t remember the sound of the gavel ever filling his lungs with so much relief. Before she’d scrambled back down to him, a proud smile lighting up her face - though she still seemed mildly oblivious to the weight of what had just happened. 

An appointed photographer asked if they’d like a photo with the judge, and Ciri’s innate reaction had been to rush back to the benches towards Yen before insistently pulling her in too. Yen wasn’t even sure if she’d be allowed. But no one protested. 

Apart from Dara, a moment later, who wanted to be in a photo too - which ensued Ciri’s decision that they needed a photo with _everyone_.

Yen wasn’t even sure how they all managed to fit, but she didn't think her heart had ever felt so big in all her life. But that only made the pain worse.

* * *

The sun was warm as Yen stepped back into the fresh air over the marble steps of the building's entrance, looking up to find a handful of light clouds painted across the sky. 

“Thank god that’s over.” She confessed, only her friends around to hear. Geralt and Ciri were still waiting for the updated birth certificate, they’d only be a minute, he’d promised. But Dara had been ready to start using the benches as a climbing frame so Phillipa had suggested the rest of them step outside. 

“I imagine we’ll all be back pretty soon,” Phil said, though Yen had turned too defensive to notice the cheek in her tone.

"Why would we be back?" Yen challenged, her arms folding. Ciri didn't need to go through any of this uncertainty all over again.

"Oh, calm down," Phil rolled her eyes. "I meant for you."

Yen stammered, her arms falling back down. 

_Oh._

Would they be back? It had almost been too easy, playing the role while they were only a flight of stairs away. It was a heartbreaking thought that it might not remain that way forever. _He couldn't really be leaving, could he?_

She heard Ciri's voice from behind her, turning to find the little girl bouncing like a lamb on spring morning as she skipped toward her. Yen hoped the smile on her face didn't show the fraying of her heartstrings as she listed to Ciri babble something about going to eat pizza at the park. 

“I promised her lunch as a celebration,” Geralt explained as he followed close behind. “I thought it would be nice if everyone came along.” 

"Okay." Yen nodded trying not to let the hurt slip into her voice. This was a happy day - Ciri didn't need to witness her being doleful.

The rest of the gang assembled shortly after, Ciri and Dara taking the lead down the pavement with Phil keeping an eye on them. Yen held back, though not consciously - doubt from a troubled mind making her feet slow. 

_Everyone leaves eventually Yen._ She tried to fight the thought from her mind, but it wasn’t working. Geralt noticed her lagging almost immediately, falling away from where he’d been chatting with Jaskier. 

“Everything alright?” He asked, concern in every syllable as he spoke.

Yen wasn’t shy in replying. “Have you really been thinking about moving?” 

The question seemed to take him off guard for a moment, before he found his feet again. 

“I mean, yeah, I've been thinking about it - as a _possibility_ ," He said, though she couldn't tell if the playfulness in his tone was deceiving her or not. "But I would only really consider it if _you_ wanted to.”

“If _I_ wanted to?” Yen blinked, it was her turn now to be startled.

“Yeah,” He smiled, reaching out to where her hand was hanging loose at her side, asking. His fingers laced through hers when she didn’t pull away. “Did you really think I’d consider leaving without you?” 

Yen didn’t answer that, the bite of her silent affirmation flashing across his face for the briefest of moments. And now she felt guilty, which didn’t seem fair. 

“Yen,” He tugged on her hand, pulling them both to a stop out of earshot of the others. “Yennefer, I love you, and I love Ciri. And as much as I acknowledge that this was initially solely _my_ decision to take her on, at this point the thought of having to do it without you is frankly quite terrifying. I want you here. I want you with me, and so does she.”

It was amazing how quickly her heart could turn from aching from grief to aching from far, far too much love. 

“This family is as much yours as it is mine,” He said, and it sounded like a promise. “But for now, the three of us are all that matters - looking for a house can wait until we're all ready -”

“I’m ready,” She interrupted. And it surprised even herself, but god, she’d never been more ready for anything. “I’m ready.”

He started smiling then, bright as the sun in the blue of the sky overhead. “Okay then.” 

Yen wondered, as they caught up with the others, if this was the first time in her life that she’d made such a weighted commitment only to feel excitement take her breath away rather than fear. 

But she had to admit, this was much nicer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos make me fall in love 😊❤️ Let me know what you guys think of this one!  
> Also, I don't normally do this but if anyone is interested, the song Soldier by James TW is really lovely and a fitting inspiration for this chapter, and, i guess, the whole fic too.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soz its only little, 2nd part will be up very soon :D

The house wasn't big, not comparatively. But there was a glimpse of grass through the windows, a tricycle in the garage that had explored along roads and pavements that gave no need for Geralt to fret, and a life of colour in the freshly painted walls that he'd left for Yen to compose. She'd spilled her heart out into it. The designs a mix of his and hers and that which had been selected at random by Ciri at the furniture store; the styles and shades should have argued, but somehow she'd made it work.

And there were plants. Everywhere. It would take Cally only a few weeks to chew through some of her favorites, and for Yen to make the necessary adaptations to the selection.

But it was warm, and it was light. Modern - but with a soul that felt as though it had been lived in and loved for much longer. It felt like Yen, and it felt like Ciri, but it felt like him too, and he was amazed at how well she'd balanced the rooms so that the architecture of their personalities in no way imposed upon one another - side by side, within and between all entirely seamlessly.

It was the first time, Geralt recognised, that he’d moved into a house that actually felt like a home.

The house warming party had been Triss' suggestion, both elated and distraught that her closest friend was moving out of walking range - but the concept had initially seemed so foreign, so sedentary, to Yen and Geralt, that they'd hesitated. They had a _house_ now, a garden. And this was a perfectly normal and expected thing to do, but the reality of it still hadn’t quite settled yet.

Yen was almost surprised when he finally agreed, Geralt, who spent every uninebriated moment in a crowded room looking for the exit. And his admission of ‘maybe it will be fun’ had her surrendering with her hands raised in the air. It would be casual, Triss assured, and after Yen’s insistence that it not be made into a _thing,_ Saturday was booked.

* * *

Summer was creeping in, the evening breeze through the open window kind against Yen’s skin as she slumped against the comfort of the couch, alone, but not lonely. Ciri and Cally already bundled together and asleep in bed upstairs; Geralt remedying the state of the kitchen after dinner and Triss’ conversation on the phone in her hand.

Jaskier had apparently volunteered to bring his guitar as a plus one, and Triss was discovering his complete inability to respond to her subtle attempts to dissuade. Yen was just grinning at the screen, tipping back to recline against the arm of the three-seater and letting her legs stretch over the fabric of the cushions in a manner that her mother would have called rebellious and incredibly ineloquent - but fuck that.

Geralt found her like that a moment later, the sky through the window turning shades of coral as he watched her beaming at her phone. Careless and happy, and extortionately content. He felt himself smiling as her eyes finally flickered away from the screen, finding him in the doorway and wondering how long he’d simply been observing her.

Yen’s forehead twitched in a question as she let the phone in her hand fall to her chest, her attention claimed by him as she abandoned Triss’s now-significantly-less-ambiguous protests on the group chat.

She was preparing to make room for him on the couch as he approached, feeling a hand, gentle but restraining around her ankle to counter her shifting upright to offer the space where her legs had been. Before he sat, relocating her feet over his lap. Wanting to join, but not wanting to disturb the nook she’d nestled out for herself

Yen settled back down, keenly aware of the patterns his fingers began to trail slowly over the skin of her calf.

“Any news from the world?” He asked, gesturing to her phone.

“Our respective friendship groups seem to be experiencing some turbulence in their venture to merge,” She grinned, almost cheekily. “You might be needed to resolve an issue, is the notion of Jas bringing his guitar tomorrow something to be genuinely concerned about?”

“Uh,” His face didn’t turn bleak, and the humour behind his eyes was probably answer enough. “It has the potential to be, but there’s really no way to discourage him once he’s made up his mind.”

Geralt was partway through a soft laugh when he heard the familiar sound of her phone chiming again, noticing the sudden and stark change in her demeanor as her eyes fixed back on the screen, her face paling to white and her body stiffening almost imperceptibly. Unexpected worry flashed through his veins at the thought that one of his friends had just said something remarkably stupid.

“Everything okay?” He tried carefully.

One of her hands moved to her mouth as if she were about to bite at her nails before she stopped herself, her eyes unfocused and hazy as they met his again. “Hmm?”

“Is everything okay?” He repeated, missing the contact and the weight of her feet on his lap as she moved, sitting upright and shifting her legs underneath her as she glanced back down to the phone.

“Yeah,” It sounded slow and not at all convincing.

“Yen.” He worried.

“Everything’s fine,” She insisted, pulling her eyes away, shaking her head lightly as if trying to dislodge whatever was troubling her, rising to her feet, aimless and lost, before her attention turned back to the startled look on his face.

_What one earth had just happened?_

“I think...” She began, distant, like she were a million miles away. “I think I’m gonna go to bed now.”

“It’s barely even eight.” He protested, concerned as much as confused; it wasn’t like they had work to wake up for, or a toddler to rush to daycare.

“I know, I’m just -” She sighed. “I’m just tired.”

Geralt watched her for any telling sings, finding none, before he spoke, his tone defeated. “Okay,”

And then she was gone, leaving him alone in the room as the sky dimmed to a deep blue through the window.

He grabbed immediately at his own phone that he’d abandoned on the coffee table, skimming back through the conversation he’d left in Yen's hands as he searched for a potential culprit and the name of the person he would be sending stern words to.

But there was nothing. Triss’ friendly bickering, Eskel’s inquiry as to whether alcohol would be allowed and Phil’s resolute reply of no. It all looked innocent enough. Which, he conceded, the realisation twisting at his heart, that whatever had caused her to bristle like Cally at the sight of a dog through the window, had to have come from somewhere else. Someone else.

And it hurt that for now at least the simple act of asking was going to offer absolutely no enlightenment. He’d assumed - though clearly he'd miscalculated, that there hadn’t even been any knots left to tease out between them, why would she have kept this guarded from him? And what could have possibly caused that sort of visceral reaction in the first place?

He groaned into his hands, aware they would be no getting her to talk before she was ready.


	18. Chapter 18

As Geralt padded across the wooden floorboards through the darkness of their bedroom a while later, he found Yen not timid in seeking out the comfort of his arms as he joined her under the bedding.

She discovered a trace of solace as she found a nest within the arms held around her body, moving her hand innocuously to rest over his chest, feeling the heartbeat there steady and slow against her palm. Reassuring. 

He heard her sniff, just once, and quiet enough that he couldn’t distinguish if the sound had been innocent or an indicator she’d been crying. He wasn't able to see her eyes. The dark wasn’t helping, and she’d hidden herself well enough, fitting like a puzzle piece against him, so there wasn’t enough room between them to investigate if they’d been tainted pink.

"Is this something I need to be concerned about?” He asked, his voice quiet against the stillness of the room.

It was clear she'd failed to fall asleep, but any explanation she might have been preparing seemed caught on her tongue. It was a compromise at least, an improvement, that if she weren't ready to find comfort in words, she was still willing to seek this from him.

“No,” She sighed finally, feeling safe in the moment as he soothed the pads of his fingers down her back, yet still not enough to admit to the person laying beside her the truth she’d been blindsiding for years. Settling on an answer that didn't feel like a lie. “It’s just hiccups and road bumps.”

Geralt didn't think that was fair to the reaction she'd had, but he wasn't going to press.

"I'm just tired, I think," She explained, but it sounded like a diversion. "I didn't expect living with a three-year-old to be so exhausting."

He laughed slightly, taking security in the warm tone of the way she'd said it, not a frustration, just a fact. "We're okay though, right?"

"Yeah," She promised, no hesitation to it. And then again, calmer, softer, sounding like a promise. "Yeah."

Minutes passed as his ears tracked the sound of her breathing, noticing immediately when it deepened, slowed, his hand moving to delicately brush the waves of dark hair off her face, now entirely peaceful in sleep - innocent even. And he hoped that whatever trouble this was, it wouldn't feel like such a monster in the morning.

* * *

Yen was gone when he woke. The reminder of the days plans tickling at his waking mind before he discovered the mattress beside him was empty, but not cold.

He discovered them both in the kitchen, Ciri perched on a stool beside the island counter, an array of what Geralt assumed was breakfast prep strewn over the counter between them. Fruit mostly. And a pineapple that Yen was dismantling with a knife, the movements fervent but not bitter. It was a tactic Vesemir had tried once, whacking watermelon’s with a metal baseball bat was surprisingly therapeutic. But Yen didn’t seem to need that now.

"Hi," She smiled a good morning as her eyes flickered up to find him at the doorway, her expression bright, Ciri mirroring the greeting a few moments later with a voice like candy floss to Geralt’s sleep hindered mind.

"Good morning..." He stalled, wishing the cheeriness on Yen's face hadn't been so unexpected, but finding it that way none the less. Geralt tried not to stare, watching and wondering if she'd permitted denial to file whatever ghost she'd seen yesterday evening to the least sun touched parts of her mind. Her reaction yesterday didn't grant simply forgetting.

“Breakfast?” He asked instead, indicating to the fruit over the counter. He couldn’t tell if Yen was simply obscuring the topic while in the presence of the three-year-old, or if this was even something worth guarding her from, but he trusted Yen to make that judgment. Ciri had enough turbulence in her own head, she didn’t need to hear theirs too.

“I appreciate the enthusiasm in your appetite, Geralt, but this lot is for later. We’ll have guests that will require feeding,” The pineapple joined other diced colours in a large glass bowl, as she continued with jest softening her voice. “For now the three of us are referring to more primitive methods and making do with toast.”

“Toast!” Ciri parroted, holding up the last jam and butter triangle that remained of what Yen had prepared for her. She didn’t seem to mind the slightest.

“Can I help… With anything?” Geralt relaxed involuntarily at Ciri’s remark as he turned back to Yen, leaving the question open and hoping she’d understand his meaning.

“I might need an extra pair of hands later, though I haven’t yet decided if Ciri’s going to be more of a help than you are,” She teased fondly, the sincerity of the warmth in her eyes helping to calm him further. “But little one needs getting ready first.”

His eyes followed as Yen nodded to the three-year-old who was stuffing the last of her breakfast into her mouth, jam tragically painted over the palms of her hands, before she raised them towards him, almost proud.

Geralt just sighed. “I think little one needs a bath.”

His face brightened, humoured, as Ciri scowled at him in protest. “Cally doesn’t need baths.”

“Cally is very good at bathing _herself_ ,” Yen countered, and that seemed to be all that was needed for Ciri’s argument to melt, conceding as she allowed Geralt to hoist her up and out of the chair before carefully placing her feet back down on the grey cladding of the kitchen floor. Ciri dashed out of the kitchen immediately, before they heard the sound of her footsteps scurrying up the staircase.

Geralt’s attention found Yen again, his smile receding slightly as he stepped closer. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Yen nodded in response, the gesture consoling, as he noted trouble was no longer clouding her eyes - though whether she’d forced it away or if it had cleared naturally was hard to tell. “Today is a happy day. Everything else can wait.”

Understanding let him mirror her nod then, before they both glanced upwards, catching onto the dim rumbling groan of the bath taps upstairs. Yen sent him an alarmed and earnest look that took him only a heartbeat to translate, ‘please go and stop her from flooding the bathroom.’

He stole an apple of the counter as he left, earning playfully narrowed eyes from Yen before disappearing to follow Ciri upstairs, praying that she wasn’t midway through inviting all her fluffy teddies to join her. Again.

* * *

Yen still couldn’t quite understand, and it was remarkable really, how Geralt’s hands could so delicately entwining the ribbons of a braid into the blonde of Ciri’s hair, yet be so clumsy as soon as he was tested with a carton of eggs. The whole teaching him to bake thing was proving an arduous work in progress.

“Look, use the edge of a knife, it might be easier,” She instructed, still perplexed as to how more shell than yolk had ended up in the mixing bowl. It was a small blessing that low expectations had reminded her to prepare the eggs before everything else, the bowl was otherwise empty. Still, she was only laughing fondly as she watched him struggle.

It was occurring to her they might be in need of another bowl, fishing the swarm of shattered pieces out seemed more effort than it was worth; she was beginning to file teaching Geralt under the same category.

“No, you have to be more gentle.” She prompted, attempting to guide his hold, becoming aware of the perhaps unfair disadvantage he had in the size of his hands - it had only ever seemed like a positive trait before.

The shell fractured again. Yen tried not to squirm as she felt it run over her hands, sending Geralt an entirely heatless glare as he stood at her side. He looked five seconds away from defeat.

“Ciri,” Yen called to the toddler, moving to the sink to rectify the mess over her hands and watching the little girl’s face appear in the kitchen doorway a moment later. “Can you please come and show your dad how you’re supposed to crack eggs?”

She noticed the mildly startled twitch to his forehead, the lines over his eyes creasing in a silent and passing question.

“What?” Yen returned the expression. “I’ve been teaching her at breakfast, is it that much of a shock that a three-year-old can manage something that seems to have you tripping over your own hands -”

The sentence stumbled as Yen acknowledged what she’d just said. It was a fact of which they were both keenly aware that Ciri still outwardly referred to Geralt by name, but the child tottering towards them made no objection and scarcely seemed to even have noticed. Heaving the toddler step into place before joining stood between them.

“ _I_ do it,” She declared firmly, though in truth Yen knew she’d still need the teeniest bit of help.

Geralt remained a tad dazed over Ciri’s natural acceptance of what had just been spoken out loud, he was aware she understood logically, legally - but sentimentality was far more stubborn. And she hadn’t even blinked.

Yen sent him a shrug while Ciri was distracted with the eggs, a gesture that reminded him to be nonchalant. But he’d never been very good at that.

* * *

A while later, and the mishaps tamed, the whole house became flooded with the scent of the chocolate chip and blueberry muffins growing like fluffy mountains in the heat of the oven. It was the first thing Jaskier noticed as Yen opened the door, watching her eyes fall down to the guitar case at his side and an expression that looked a shade of mournful taking over her face.

“Well, isn’t this quaint.” He noted, his tone friendly as he took amusement from her derision, he knew she didn’t mean it harshly.

“Hi, Jas,” Yen greeted, warmer this time. Turning at the sound of Ciri’s feet pattering down the hallway towards the front door, the little girl’s welcome much louder than Yen’s had been as she joyfully called out Jaskier’s name. Far too much curiosity and interest in her voice as she inquired about the instrument he’d bought with him. Yen just sighed.

* * *

The house wasn’t designed to hold ten people at once, they’d known that, but it wouldn’t stop them trying. The walls bursting at the seams long before the moment the last of their friends arrived, but in the best possible way. Movie nights had always leaned to the side of crowded, so this was nothing new to Yen, and Geralt seemed to be braving through it.

It hadn’t taken much of an assessment, and Geralt had been honest and unafraid to admit that he would be equally useless manning the barbeque as he’d been in the kitchen that morning. But Yen had made sure to check days ago, giving no harsh appraisal before she’d left a message with Phillipa, asking her friend if she would be okay left in charge of the coals. Unless they wanted their food a remarkable shade of stark black, it was probably for the best.

Yen had scarcely even thought about it, until Triss nudged her with the topic, and that in itself probably proved her complete and utter lack of dissatisfaction over the disparity in their cooking skills.

“Is it not a bit … overbearingly conventional?” Her friend asked.

But no, no it wasn’t, because although her adventures in the kitchen weren’t _messy_ , per say, they did tend to flourish in the realms of virulent, and he was always more than happy to clean up afterward - a task she’d always hated. They had a balance. And the whole time she'd known him he'd never so much as let the scales tip an inch before stepping forward to share the weight of it again, a behaviour that was incredibly refreshing, and one of the reasons she’d been so unafraid while the three of them had been looking at houses. Other than the fact she loved them both, obviously - indefinitely and wholeheartedly. But that went without saying by now.

Jaskier pulled out his guitar the moment the fire was lit and blazing, Dara and Ciri equally enamored as they watched and listened.

“I thought you said he was bad,” Yen sent a frown to Geralt standing close beside her. Jaskier could sing. He could actually sing, and his playing seemed self-taught but a hundred miles more than adept.

“I never said that,” Geralt insisted, a smile that looked cheeky lighting his face. “I agreed it might be a concern - he doesn’t tend to stop once he’s gotten started, and that little fanbase of two is gonna go straight to his head.”

* * *

The garden wasn’t _empty_ of furniture, there was technically enough placed to sit, but Yen found herself and those of her friends who weren’t masterfully watching over the barbeque reclined sharing the two wooden sun loungers. It might have been a tad precarious, but there was a coziness too it, a necessary level of familiarity she’d exceeded with them years ago.

She watched as Ciri discovered a patch of daisies in the grass a distance away, the sun and the warmth of the afternoon had encouraged the flowers to open, it almost seemed mean to allow her to pick them all. But Yen found herself not minding as the three-year-old tottered over, barefoot across the grass, and asked for help making a daisy chain.

Dara had exhausted his capacity for playing with his new friend and was now doing what little he was allowed to help prepare lunch under his mother’s strict supervision. So Ciri climbed into Yen’s lap, as she and Triss began tutoring with gentle and maneuvering hands, how to assemble the flowers into a crown. Ciri tried, but her fingers were too clumsy to weave the stems together, so the white-petaled creation was left in the hands of the women sat beside her.

“How have her counseling sessions been going?” Renfri asked, the question directed at Yen, curious, but not prying, as she reached out to collect a few from the pile of dainty flowers.

Yen redirected the question to Ciri. She could have answered herself, easily - they’d both been vigilant enough over the matter to write a whole thesis, but it was far cuter to hear the three-year-old say it. “Ciri, what do you think of Eithné?”

“She’s nice!” Ciri proclaimed, checking Yen’s hands to see the progress of the daisy chain. “I like her.”

Ciri had yet to grasp what a therapist actually was, Yen knew, but the little girl was never slow with endorsements.

“What do you two do when you’re together?” Yen prompted, her hands still busy weaving.

“We talk,” Ciri explained, as if that was an expectation but not a highlight. “She has lots of pens. I get to draw.”

The consequence of the three-year-old being let loose with arts and crafts for an hour every week was blooming over the refrigerator door, magnets holding the paper in place. But they were running out of room now - they would either need a new system, or a new fridge. Yen smiled at the thought, finalising the daisy crown and placing it carefully over Ciri’s head as the little girl’s face beamed in thank you, but she seemed too content to move from Yen’s lap just yet.

Yen heard the knocking at the front door then, her head turning towards the source of the sound, meeting the hesitation in Geralt’s eyes from where he stood with the guys and Phil near the patio table. _Had Istredd changed his mind about joining them? Everyone else was already here._

“Sorry sweetheart,” Yen excused herself, shifting Ciri towards Triss’s lap as she nervously followed Geralt back through the house and towards the front entrance.

He was only a few steps ahead - three, two. So she didn’t have time to stop him as the silhouettes through the frosted glass became recognisable. The words running through her mind before she had the chance to say them out loud, her feet threatening to freeze in place. _Please don’t open the door._

But he did.

“Uh, hi...” She heard him say, a question as much as a greeting.

Yen pushed past him, shielding the entrance with her body, though she recognised it was a pitiful attempt. As she stared down the faces of her parents, her expression cold, the tone of her voice unfriendly. “What are you doing here? I told you not to come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What on earth happened to 'soon'? Sorry guys 😅 I'm gonna blame it on the severe lack of dopamine in my head the last week. But I'm better now, so I hope you enjoy this chapter! The last one, this and the next one were supposed to all be joined but they rebelliously kept growing, and I get lazy with longer chapters, so i made the decision to split them into three. Let me know what you think :D


	19. Chapter 19

"Well," Yen's mother turned to face her, the year of absence between them bringing no warmth to her voice. "Are you going to let us in?"

_Absolutely not._

"Of course," Geralt answered for her, slowly, surprised, meeting Yen's gaze as her head snapped back towards him, the question swimming over his expression. _Your parents?_ But the shear astonished dread he found replied in her eyes was not the confirmation he'd been expecting, and now he was debating how rude it would be to simply shut the door on their faces to have an unprompted moment to talk.

Her mother took liberty of the heartbeat slowed by indecision, as she pushed past into the hallway, Yen’s father dragged in hand behind, the only one of the two looking remotely regretful of the circumstances, though he gave no apology.

"Well, isn't this… quaint." Her mother assessed as she allowed herself through to the living room, the word lacking any if the kindness Jaskier had shown it earlier.

"What are you doing here?" Yen repeated, horrified as she followed her parents into the room, Geralt still dazed behind her.

"We wanted to come and see the home you had made for yourself," Her mother said, as if it were the most understandable thing in the world. "I called in on the Clinic a few days ago, apparently you weren't working, but that lovely colleague of yours was very helpful - Istredd, I think he was called. He explained you were having a little get together today. Which was a shock to us, we didn't even know you'd moved, let alone… all the _rest_ of it."

 _Oh, Istredd._ There was, perhaps, a disadvantage to so completely and utterly ignoring the existence of those who claimed to have raised her - Istredd couldn't have known. He couldn't have known what he had condemned her to.

"Most would wait for an invitation." Yen said through partially gritted teeth.

"Yen," She heard Geralt speak quietly behind her, a voice that was cautioned, but not condescending. Stepping up beside her and allowing his arm to fall close to hers, the skin of their wrists brushing - a subtle motion he'd known and intended she'd take comfort from.

" _Most_ would not forget their manners while hosting guests." Her mother returned, her eyes sharp as she finished her dissatisfied analysis of the living room.

Yen was left gaping over a reply, her veins turning hot as she watched her parents discover the entrance to the garden, and the oblivious people that were lounging there.

"Do you want me to get rid of them?" Geralt offered, his voice little above a whisper as they let themselves outside.

"I don't know," Yen admitted feebly. "I think that might just make things much worse."

* * *

The joviality in the garden had quietened, Yen noted, as she followed her parents through the door, every fiber of her muscles tense.

Triss's eyes found her's immediately, the silent question of 'are you okay?' passing in the blink of an eye. Yen nodded subtly, but she wasn't sure she meant it.

“Why don’t you introduce us to your friends.” Her mother prompted with a voice that was almost friendly.

_Why don’t I not._

Yen felt a hand brush past hers then, too small to be Geralt’s, as she looked down to see Ciri wordlessly linking her hand through Yen’s. The little girl looked nervous, an expression that seemed to sit unfamiliar on her face in the place she’d learned as home and surrounded by people she’d embraced as family, but perhaps she was feeding off Yen’s emotions. She forced them to the back of her mind, aware that the whole garden was alert and watching.

“So this is Cirilla?” Something like a shadow of a smile flitted across the older woman’s face as she acknowledged the little girl, before turning back to Yen, tutting. “You couldn’t have one of your own, so you decided to invade someone else’s family. I really thought I’d raised you better than that Yennefer.”

Geralt stiffened beside her, stepping forward as if prepared to intervene - perhaps with words of explanation, perhaps with something less civilized. But Yen braced a hand against his chest before he could, sending him a look of abdication.

Her mother’s eyes fell instantly to the centerpiece of Yen’s shoulders as she turned, the skin there untimid in its exposure in the summer dress Ciri had asked her to wear.

“Darling, is there not a cardigan or something you could fetch from inside? Your scar is showing."

Yen bristled, sucking in a deep and infuriated breath. _Oh, fuck it._

“Is there a problem here?” Lambert asked as he approached, tailed by the other guys. Yen didn’t think she’d ever been so happy to be surrounded by so many big, burly men. Not that Jaskier counted in that, but he looked just as battle ready as the rest of them.

“Thank you, Lambert, but I think I can take care of this myself,” Yen assured, before she knelt to speak with Ciri, delicately tucking a strand of blonde hair behind the little girl’s ear. “Why don’t you go and sit back next to Triss, alright?”

“Okay,” Ciri nodded reservedly, before heading back to the sun loungers.

Yen turned back to her mother, speaking bluntly and unafraid. “You need to leave.”

"I hardly think that's necessary Yennefer, we’ve only just arrived.”

“We had been hoping to spend some time with you - with Ciri, to get to know her a little.” Her father explained, and she recognised the flickering plead of apology in his eyes - it was something at least.

"I do not want you here. Leave." She repeated, her voice strong but refrained from shouting. "Get out of my house. You have _no_ right to be here, and if you think the decision for you to get to be a part of my life again - if and when it’s ever made, is anything other than _mine_ to make then you are poorly mistaken. I do not want you here, and I do not want you anywhere near Ciri. Do you understand?”

Her mother had the nerve to look scorned.

“I think it’s time we left, dear.” Her father urged, catching his wife’s attention before any more harsh words could fall from her mouth.

Eskell showed them to the door, locking it firmly closed and blocking out the loud complaints of disrespect.

“Are you okay?” Triss asked as she rushed over, hugging tightly around Yen’s middle from behind.

“Yeah,” It was a wobbly answer and they all knew it. _Where was Cally when you needed her?_ But Geralt squeezed her hand, reassuring, and Ciri wandered back over before offering Yen her flower crown, so she supposed it didn’t really matter that the cat was out of reach.

“The food’s done,” Phil announced somberly. “If that helps at all.”

It did. A bit.

* * *

She tried at least, but Yen later renounced the fruit salad she’d made for a tub of chocolate ice cream. Everyone left after lunch, an excuse to leave them in peace, as they had called it. But the quiet just felt excruciatingly loud now. At least there was no one around to watch, retreated back into a more comfortable outfit, as she smothered a layer of ice cream in between the muffin she’d sliced in half, before shoving the creation haphazardly into her mouth. This was not the healthiest of coping strategies. She was aware. She just didn’t have the capacity to care right now.

The tub was judgmentally empty from where it sat on the coffee table by the time Ciri found her, the little girl dressed and ready for bed, Kelpie bundled in her arms as she climbed onto the sofa close beside where Yen was sat cross-legged over the cushions. No borders of personal boundaries even left to break between them.

“You don’t like your parents,” Ciri said, breaking whatever timid smile of welcome that had been growing on Yen’s face. “Why?”

Yen caught sight of Geralt as he appeared in the doorway, looking apologetic that Ciri had slipped away from him while trying to get the little girl to bed.

It was troubling to Yen, how the situation would have translated into the mind of the three-year-old who’d had not even the smallest trace of a memory of what her own parents looked like. Would she think her spoiled? For pushing them away when she had the fortune and the opportunity to even know them - there was perhaps some truth in that.

“Sometimes...” Yen took a breath. “Sometimes family’s are not kind. And we can be a lot happier without them.”

Ciri nodded slowly, confused by the concept, but somehow also accepting. “They are mean.”

It was a statement, not a question, and it worried Yen how much of her mother’s comments the little girl had been able to hear. “They are. They can be.”

“Do you love them?”

It was such a brutally honest question, the type that could only be manufactured by a child that was both unafraid and unaware of the weight of it. No one had ever asked Yen before, she’d never even asked herself.

“I do.” She found herself saying after a few slow heartbeats of deliberation, and it didn’t feel like a lie on her tongue. She wasn’t sure how she could, perhaps it was inescapable. But she did. Piled under the rubble of hurt and hatred, there was a flame of love still living.

Ciri went quiet, her attention focused on the teddy in her hand. Yen wondered if she’d been hoping for a different answer, before the little girl spoke again, and Yen was certain her heart was about to grow too big for her ribcage. “I love you,”

Yen let out a soft laugh, a surprised sound, but also as endeared as she possibly could be, before leaning down to press a slow kiss the top of the three-year-olds head, breathing out slowly as she replied in promise. “I love you too.”

* * *

Ciri fell asleep three pages into the book Yen had been reading, before she crept quietly out of the room, flicking off the light and closing the door as she found Geralt making his way up the wooden staircase, the creaking silenced by careful feet.

“Is she asleep?”

Yen nodded, her hands moving to fidget with themselves distractedly. “I’m sorry for, uh… for ruining the party.”

“Yen,” His tone was firmer now. “That was _not_ your fault, and it’s really the last thing that matters right now. So can you please explain to me what exactly the situation is here, and not the guarded for the ears of a three-year-old, version.”

She took his hand then, tugging him through to the bedroom before closing the door. Two sound barriers were better than one. And then she sat, because she felt like she needed to, perching over the edge of the mattress and feeling the shift of him joining a moment later.

It felt like a release, not an obligation to his question, as she began to talk. Though he wasn’t the first to hear the story.

“Growing up,” She began. “My mother had always been very austere, and she could be harsh at times, but it was only when I was much older that I finally realised what the term narcissist actually meant.”

Geralt waited for her to continue, watching as she tucked her hands between her knees to stop them proving a distraction.

“She wasn’t particularly fond of the fact I was... different. Like I’d been born a disgrace to her image or something. Every time we showed up at the doctors for a consultation, she’d always talk about me as if I were something that needed fixing. Rectifying. And as a child, I used to hear her say all the time, so often that it was the surest thing I believed in, that I’d finally be pretty after I had the surgery. That I would finally be beautiful.”

She paused for a moment, her eyes rebelliously misting. “And looking back, I’m pretty certain she was more in love with the concept of who I might become rather than who I _was_.”

He watched as she sighed, deep and slow. “I don’t know, if she did love me it was a specific brand of cold. And then the surgery finally happened, and months of physiotherapy passed. And I still felt like _me_ \- it was almost a disappointment somehow. Like I’d expected I’d go through some sort of magical transformation, that she would suddenly love me. But everything stayed exactly the same. She still chastised what I wore, the way I kept my hair, my makeup - or the lack of it. My dad never did anything to stop her, I think he was afraid of upsetting her. But he at least helped me get out, and when he offered to pay for boarding school across state, it wasn’t even much of a decision. And then I went to college, and I have hardly seen them since.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” He asked, his voice gentle.

Yen shrugged. “It seemed so minimal. In comparison to what you went through.”

Something in Geralt’s heart broke. What dice game had fate been playing that the three of them and all their damaged pieces had found their way together as they had?

“Sometimes,” He started. “Being hurt by the ones who were supposed to love us stings ten times worse than from those who gave no such promises.”

She nodded, blinking away wet eyelids, her hand moving to brush off a single tear as it escaped down her cheek. Her jaw fighting over something else she was struggling to say. “Geralt… are you okay just having Ciri?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What my mom mentioned earlier, she wasn’t lying. I can’t have a family, I can’t have kids, and I need you to know that if you were hoping for a family any larger than this it’s not gonna happen through any _conventional_ means.”

She tried to smile at that, but the expression didn’t make it far across her face before it died.

This was either going to get her friend in a lot of trouble, or exponentially ease one of the two concerns crushing over her shoulders, Geralt thought, so he supposed it was worth the gamble. He moved forward slowly, leaning his forehead against hers after she didn’t pull away. He rested there for a few quiet moments before he spoke again. “I already know.”

“What?” She pulled away, confused but not alarmed. “How? Since when?”

“Triss might have mentioned it,” He confessed. “Months ago, back before I brought Ciri home.”

“You knew. You knew this whole time?” She said, a dazed look over her face.

_He knew. He knew and he’d wanted to move in together anyway - it hadn’t mattered._

“Yennefer,” He began, his hands moving to cup around her face. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life, and this is all the family I need.” It sounded like the most candid promise she’d ever heard. Though the next part took her by surprise, the contrast in his tone of voice making her heart skip. "Turn around."

He smiled faintly in amusement when she frowned at him, before he insisted. "Trust me."

So she did, his weight dipping in the mattress as he shuffled until he was settled directly behind her.

Before he pulled the t-shirt over her head.

"Geralt," She protested over the forwardness of it, the tint of laughter inevitable in her voice.

But then she felt him press his mouth over the space between her shoulder blades where the very precipice of her scar began, and the argument melted inside her chest.

“I love you,” He said. “Every single part of you, and you know I wouldn’t trade that for the world, right?”

She hadn’t been sure, not completely, but it was starting to become abundantly clear. So she nodded. Closing her eyes and leaning back against him as his lips returned to the ghosted trail of flowers along her spine.

But the tears falling from her eyes didn’t hurt now. And it felt like the last of the cobwebs in her chest had finally been blown free. There were no more secrets, but they were okay. Everything was going to be okay.


	20. Chapter 20

It was a Friday the first time it happened.

Geralt had been working from home, and without the afternoon commute as an easy reminder to _stop_ for the day he'd allowed himself to remain stuck at his makeshift desk in the living room well after his girls had returned back to the house.

Yen wasn't sure why Ciri had chosen that moment to say it, maybe she'd decided one syllable was easier than two, or maybe she was simply aware it would be a guaranteed method to finally break his attention away from the endless cavern of emails when the sound of his name didn't seem to be adequate.

"Dad," The little girl had said it so softly, as she wandered toward him - an experiment, a test, to see how it would sit on her tongue, how it would feel in the room. But no one flinched, and it _had_ worked - Geralt was now very much _not_ looking at the screen on his lap.

"It’s stop time now," Ciri said decisively, but calm, kind. As she reached out and pushed the lid of the laptop closed. And it almost made Yen laugh, as she watched from the other side of the room with the weight of the cat on her lap, how final the command had sounded from such a small, little lady.

Geralt’s eyes found Yen’s after a few heartbeats spent blinking at the three-year-old, dazed, searching for any semblance of guidance before he became lost in his mind to the repetition of what had just been spoken out loud. But Yen sent him nothing in aid, save for a playfully hiked eyebrow.

“What? You heard her,” Yen said, the amusement on her face not even the slightest bit shy. “It's stop time now.”

And that was the first, but Ciri didn't seem inclined to stop now that she'd started, and Geralt found himself scrambling to get used to being identified by a whole new name. And it felt foreign - but it was strange, in its disunion, how it also felt so right. And maybe it had become true, over time, he thought, that maybe these tidal waves of sentiment knocking him off his feet were exactly what being a dad was all about.

Yen teased him about it later in the seclusion of their own bedroom, surrounded by the dim light of a late summer evening and the comfort of soft down quilts. How he’d looked as startled as a deer in the headlights, and how, once the shock had settled, he’d spent the remainder of the evening so unsubtly trying to get the three-year-old to say it again. She hadn’t, but it didn’t really matter.

It was good, Geralt acknowledged, his heart still unbalanced from how abrupt it had seemed, that Ciri even had allowed herself to say it at all. Like early daffodils in spring, bright colours of yellow peeking through the grey, the first sign that things were getting better. That she was comfortable here, with them, and that she’d developed a level of trust in the belief that she wouldn’t be torn from the attachments she’d been so tentative in making. That she was theirs. That she _could_ , if she wanted.

“You know,” Geralt began quietly across the pillows, a while after Yen’s teasing had been shushed by her falling languid within the warmth of his arms. But he knew she was still listening when she gave a light hum of reply. “We’re going to get in trouble if we keep referring to her as a three-year-old. Her birthday _is_ next month, she might start scowling at us if we keep saying it out loud for much longer.”

He felt, more than heard, Yen’s gentle laugh of response, her voice quiet and sleepy as she spoke. “Does she want a party? Maybe the next one won’t be so much of a disaster.”

“Actually,” Geralt said, keeping his voice careful; it was a suggestion, just a possibility. “I was thinking we could take her down to Vesemir’s for a week or two, let her spend a little bit of time with the horses in the country.”

Yen shifted, moving barely enough to meet his eyes - joking, he hoped. “A holiday? Together? Are you sure we’re ready for that?”

He found himself instantly missing the contact of her body, searching for her hand under the cotton sheets and lacing their fingers together after he found it. “We’re raising a three, sorry, nearly four _-_ year-old together, I would have thought there wasn’t a challenge left in existence that wouldn’t run away from us screaming.”

She laughed again, more audibly this time, before he watched her quieten, still, her eyes falling to his chest though he had the distinct feeling she was looking _through_ him rather than at him. “Who exactly is Vesemir to you, I mean, I know he fostered you, but... sentimentally?”

“He, uh -” Geralt thought for a moment, his thumb pacifying over the bare skin of her wrist and enjoying the simple intimacy of it. “He was, _is_ , basically my dad, though I was never as brave as Ciri to call him that to his face.”

She had no reply to that, and Geralt was certain she was deliberating the seriousness of what this trip would mean. He’d met her parents, as unfortunate as that encounter had been. But now he wanted Yen to meet Vesemir, and for Vesemir to meet Ciri, and maybe Roach had something to do with it too.

“Okay,” She said after a few easy, silent minutes. “A couple of weeks sounds nice.”

* * *

Yen escaped the clinic the moment her lunch break started. Istredd’s apologies regarding the parental calamity at the party were heartfelt and had been endearing at first, but by now it was beginning to feel a smidge suffocating. Stepping outside seemed a better alternative to snapping at him.

The day was warm and the sun was shining and twenty minutes later she found herself in the middle of the more worn and aged area of town, but the buildings here were quaint rather than crumbling. The people on the street smiled as she passed them.

Her attention snagged on the sign over the bookstore the moment she saw it, her eyes acknowledging the display of books and novels through the lattice of the window frame. One tome standing out in particular, and the image of a silver griffon proudly standing, wings splayed, over its front cover.

A bell chimed as Yennefer pushed through the front door.

* * *

“Ciri?” She called out the moment she arrived home, her keys settling with a metallic clink into the bowl on top of the organiser in the hallway. Geralt had brought the little girl home from daycare today, which was the only reason the gift was still captive in Yen’s bag as she placed it beside the keys.

But it was Geralt she found walking down the hallway towards her when she looked towards the sound of footsteps.

“Actually,” He began, a cryptic glint in his eyes. “She’s not home.”

Yennefer crossed her arms. There was a game here, she just hadn’t figured it out yet. “Please tell me you didn’t leave her behind at daycare, she might end up revoking your dad status in revenge if you have.”

“She’s with Triss,” He explained as he moved closer, solving one question while conceiving another. “For the evening. Possibly the whole night.”

 _Well, that was just cheeky._ Yen’s eyebrows raised, though there was no real disapproval behind the gesture. “And why is she with Triss?”

“Because,” Geralt began, stepping so close that it would have been intrusive if it were anyone else, enough to make her suck in a breath, which was really just pitiful at this point. “It occurred to me recently that we’ve been seeing each other for over a whole year but I don’t think I’ve ever actually taken you out for dinner.”

 _Oh._ Any objection in her posture tumbled away along with the tangle of her arms as she spoke, cheerful. “We’re going out?”

“If you want to.” 

Yen found herself considering, which was unexpected. It would be nice, she wasn’t arguing that, but she wasn’t sure if it would feel like _them_ , and she had at times found the whole dinner thing rigidly ceremonial.

But she heard herself agreeing anyway.

* * *

The dress wasn’t new, but she was keenly aware Geralt had never seen her in it before. An evening dress, appropriately, though the skirt was short - the flowing black material breaching just below her knees, the bodice giving way to patterned lace around her shoulders.

It was not designed to be sinful, more elegant than immodest, but something like lust still flickered across Geralt’s face as Yen descended the stairs towards him. He’d dressed up too, but you could dress a cowboy in a suit and there would still be something charmingly rugged about him. It had only been for five years, he would remind her, but it was still fun to taunt him with. Yen had always thought it unfair that his work had outfitted him with a selection of extremely well-fitted suits yet she’d only had the pleasure of seeing him in them a handful of times. A crime, really.

But there was a reason for that, she knew, trying not to grin confidently as she approached where he was waiting, looking only two degrees shy off uncomfortable. He was wearing no tie, the formality hadn't called for it. So it wasn't hard for Yen's fingers to move to the topmost button of his shirt and swiftly pry it open before flattening the material over his chest with the palms of her hands. He breathed then, and it almost sounded like a laugh, a release.

"Better?"

He just nodded, his expression softening, before placing a hand carefully on the small of her back and guiding her towards and out the front door.

* * *

The evening air was gentle, the sky speckled pink, and perhaps it should have been unseemly that they were _out_ for the evening while there were still rays of sun in the sky, but they’d surrendered themselves to Ciri’s schedule months ago. The definition of _late_ had enduringly changed, and maybe it had been near mortifying when she’d explained it to Triss, but bedtime was bedtime, and even this, under the dawn of evening, felt like trespassing onto a world that was no longer theirs. But Yen was not grieving, the rest of the world could keep its convivialities under the influence of late nights, loud music and inebriated bodies. She had everything she needed, and it wasn’t found downtown or in the youth of morning.

Still, the restaurant was beautiful, the tone balanced carefully between welcoming and elegant, but not so formal as to feel oppressive. It did feel fancy, but the building was dated and streams of coloured lights had been hung to glitter from the rafters so it felt a shade of domestic too. The reflection of it must have caught in her eyes like the glint of stars over the stillness of a lake because Geralt paused to stare at her for a moment after they’d been seated, looking like he’d stumbled upon something ethereal as her eyes explored the constellations over the ceiling.

She shrugged at him then, before being left eluded by a smile he’d tried to hide towards the direction of the table. She couldn’t work out what it had meant, so she shrugged it off.

And it was nice. This was nice. Something about being here with him as easy as breathing after stepping out of the clinic after being stuck inside all day, but the tables soon grew crowded around them, and the noise of chatter began to fill the room like encroaching water. And although Geralt seemed okay, happy even, the sense was growing in Yen that this was something he was braving for her sake rather than something he would have willingly subjected himself to. She wasn’t sure what miscommunication had occurred to make him think this had ever been something she’d needed. There was a reason, she wanted to tell him, that they’d lasted this long without ever considering this a necessity.

So she started shoving breadsticks into her purse.

“Uh,” He floundered, more baffled than alarmed. “What are you doing?”

“Gathering snacks,” She informed him, nonchalant. “Finish your drink, we’re leaving.”

She noticed his eyes searching for her phone across the table then, trying to compute if Triss had just sent a message of disaster and a call for aid. But the device was now buried under breadsticks and not the culprit of her behaviour. Yen downed the last of her wine, content that they still had yet to order any food as she fixed the note of a tip under the weight of her now empty glass.

“Come on,” She offered her hand as she stood with a cheeky smile. "I'm going to the park, you can come too if you like.”

* * *

She found them a bench along the river, illuminated by rustic lamp light that bordered the path. Her legs were getting cold now that the sun had departed, though Geralt’s jacket was helping to fend off the regret that she’d left so much skin exposed to the bite of the air. He hadn’t even verbalised an offer before draping it over her shoulders, it sat stupidly large on her frame, and the wine and his body beside her were keeping her warm enough for now but she smiled in sincere thanks anyway.

She extended her purse towards him, hoping they wouldn’t be covered in lint as she pulled out one of the breadsticks. They’d need a real meal later, she realised, as she bit down and her mouth began to water. But there had never been anything wrong with takeout.

“Tell me more about the farm,” Yen prompted, wondering if there were even any stories left for her to hear, though she didn't mind if he repeated a few.

They spent the rest of the evening talking, exploring the park hand in hand under the colours of night after the lowering temperature nudged them onto their feet again. He’d never understood the obsession with hands before, how those types of nauseatingly affectionate lovers scarcely seemed able to let go of each other. Understanding was making him sympathetic now; he loved her hands, playing with them, holding them, because they were Yen’s. And that was really all there was to it. But it was strange how easily his bravery had slipped away now that the evening was no longer under his control.

Yennefer was attentive to the change in him, she blamed it on the alcohol, as little as they’d had, and it was almost hard to see in the darkness but she was certain he’d been looking at her strange. A good strange - new, but not alarming. Something reminiscent of the expression he’d had on his face while she’d been sat under the flicker of pretty lights. But there were none now. He was just looking at _her_ , exactly how she was in the moment without the pretension of luminous colours creating a galaxy in the reflection of her eyes. And that in itself was almost entirely incapacitating to any thought process she’d been trying to follow. _God, he loved her. He really, actually, stupidly and unmistakably loved her._ Sure, she’d heard the words, even her own mother had thrown them around, but there was no possible way to construe this as a lie. But she never had doubted him.

The buzzing on her phone tugged away her attention before the joy in her chest could make it difficult for her to breathe. And this time it _was_ from Triss, sighing, but entertained as she read the message of defeat.

“Everything okay?” He asked, following her feet to a stop.

“I think we might have to go and save them both,” Yennefer explained. “Ciri has refused to go to bed and Triss woefully resorted to offering her ice cream as trade in agreement that she would finally go to sleep.”

“Oh,” He rolled his eyes. “I bet that worked like a charm.”

“Mmhm.” Yen agreed, tapping a reply though on the phone. “I guess the night off is cancelled. Sorry about that.” It was sincere, she’d been looking forward to it too.

“It’s alright,” He shrugged. “This is, what, Triss’s second time babysitting alone? It was weeks before we’d stopped tripping over our own feet with it.” And t _here was always tomorrow_ , he thought, _thousands of them, hopefully._

* * *

Triss looked nothing but embarrassed as they arrived at her door to collect the little girl, and it was late, but she was talking far too excitedly the whole ride home.

“I might have a remedy,” Yen confessed, following Ciri as she dashed on little legs through the front door and down the hallway. Yen pulled the book out of her bag when she located it, offering it for his inspection. “I found it today, what do you think?”

Geralt blinked. It was almost identical, the artwork eerily similar to the book of beasts Ciri already had. “It’s not...?

“By the same author?” Yen nodded. “I looked the name up on my phone. Same illustrator and everything.”

“You know these aren’t technically for young children.” But there was a smile on his face regardless.

“Her favourite story is about a bunch of psychotic, kid-drowning, semi-aquatic horses, it can’t really get any worse than that.” She pointed out. “I thought you could give it to her.”

Geralt glanced away from the blurb he'd been examining back up to Yen. Before he shook his head. _Had she not realised, or was she just being tentative about this?_ “No, you found it, you need to give it to her.”

She wasn’t taken aback by the suggestion, but by the conviction of the way he’d said it.

“The first one was given to Ciri by her mother. I think this one should be too.” He explained, pacing it back into her hands that seemed to be frozen in the air.

“Okay,” She said, her voice cracking slightly, before she turned, slowly, disappearing down the hallway to find Ciri and shepherd her towards her bedroom.

* * *

Geralt could hear them through the gap in Ciri’s door as he passed, Yen’s enacted words as she read aloud and Ciri’s gentle gasps as she listened. His feet carried him downstairs, searching for the cat.

He found Cally perched on the windowsill in the living room, legs tucked up underneath her and looking like a loaf of motley coloured bread. She liked the garden, but not enough to risk more than simply looking at it. Blinking warmly as he approached, a small chirp ringing from the back of her throat as he sat on the arm of the couch beside her.

“I don’t think our plan went particularly well,” He admitted. Delicately unveiling a small box from his pocket before carefully prying the lid open on its hinge. The beautiful but modest band of silver catching on the moonlight through the window.

He didn’t mind, not really. Truth be told Yen’s derailing of the evening had really only further confirmed the decision, not that there had even been any doubt left to dispute.

 _There was always tomorrow_ , he thought, smiling, _thousands of them, hopefully._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh heck, that was far too fluffy, but then this whole thing has been way too soft for them so I guess you guys are expecting it by now 😅❤️


	21. Chapter 21

The cityscape became little more than a memory behind them as they drove. The ornery grey of pavements seeped into lush verges, a tapestry of green and gold fields surrounding them the deeper they escaped into it.

Geralt had a car now. He wasn't sure how that had happened, only that it had - at some point. He’d never really cared before, but there was something about public transport that didn't seem as secure as it had once, now that Ciri was with him.

The landscape was different this time, Geralt noticed absentmindedly, but it wasn't the scenery _outside_ his window that was keeping his attention. Yen, sat in the seat beside him, occasionally, carefully, feeding him snacks by hand from the stockpile she'd resourced at her feet. And the infant in the backseat sleeping, almost slumped against the window in her car seat. _How could that be comfortable?_ Geralt frowned as he checked on her via the rearview mirror, but she hadn't yet woken to readjust herself, so it couldn't have been enough of a concern to nag through to her unconscious mind, and she'd slept in stranger postures without ever later complaining, which just seemed unfair to Geralt.

 _God_ , _was he getting old?_

* * *

They weren't far now, twenty minutes, ten, before Yen pried open the window to listen inquisitively to the song her ears had caught onto. Metallic, but musical - like the chinking of a choir of distant wind chimes.

"Is that...?" She asked absently, tipping her head out the window enough to listen without the breeze becoming too much of an annoyance in her hair.

"Cowbells?" Geralt smiled at the mystical look in her eyes. "Yeah."

"I thought that was more of a European thing?" It was in her voice too now.

"It is," He agreed; none of the other ranches around here used them. "Ves is a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to things like that, at least, that's what he blames it on, really I think he just likes the sound."

Yen relaxed back against her seat, but the window stayed open. "How many does he have?"

"Cows?" Geralt asked. "Not a lot, it's a relatively small farm, but the noise carries through the whole valley."

He hadn't appreciated it as a youth, a constant reminder that no matter how far his attempts to run away got him the chiming would follow and follow and follow; it had been infuriating at the time. But he'd stopped running eventually.

Geralt pried his own window open so he could listen closer too.

* * *

Ciri was awake by the time the car rolled down the gravel track towards the farmhouse. It was an old building, like somebody had stolen an image off a postcard and stuck it amongst green pastures, wooden barns, and a stream of crystal water. The air was different here, Geralt hadn't faithfully remembered the feel of it, clean and pure as he breathed it in. He'd missed this.

He wrestled with the clips and buckles holding Ciri ransom in her car seat, the little girl’s eyes darting to a horse a short distance away, it’s coat turned a shade of dazzling copper in the late afternoon sun, observing them curiously over the fence line while chomping audibly on the tuft of grass sticking out its mouth.

Ciri squeaked.

She dashed over as soon as she was free, Geralt setting her down on the ground and watching as she scurried away on little legs. The horse didn’t shy at her sudden movement, instead, inquisitively stretching its neck down towards her before letting out a languid huff of warm air over her face, it was as mellow of a greeting as she was going to get.

Ciri was beaming as she spun back to look at him. Yen was looking equally as dazzled by their surroundings, awestruck even, stepping out of the car before twirling in a slow circle to take it in.

"Afternoon," Geralt heard from the other direction, turning to find Vesemir approaching from the wooden porch of the house nearby in his usual worn clothes, his old hat still sitting atop ashen hair. It had been almost a year since Geralt’s last visit, plenty long enough for the guilt in his chest to be justified, yet Vesemir’s voice sounded as tepid as if the younger man had simply been out for the day riding fence.

The expression on Ves’ face gave him away though.

His eyes were brighter than usual, and Geralt had no doubt that the sight of the nearly four-year-old reaching a hand out to pat old Kaedwen on the nose had a large part to do with that. Ciri started giggling as the chestnut licked the palm of her hand. The horses had never been that gentle with him _,_ but then he’d been a rebellious little shit so maybe that was fair.

Geralt was intently aware, and Ves would no doubt be too, that Ciri was probably as close to a grandchild as the older man was going to get. The two had spoken over the phone, a little, but familiarity always prefered using eyes.

“Geralt,” The two men shared a friendly nod and a tip of a hat before Ves made a complaisant beeline towards the little girl. Geralt didn’t grudge his priorities, Ves had been waiting months to meet her face to face.

“Hello there, little lady," Vesemir said, as he approached, kneeling down an unimposing distance beside her. "I see you've met our Kaedwen."

"It's a horse!" Ciri declared.

"It's… well, yeah," Vesemir's chuckled as he nodded along with the discerned identification, his tone patient and kind. "It _is_ a horse."

The old man had never sounded so much like a granddad in the whole time Geralt had known him. _Where had this soft side been all those years ago while barking orders at the farmhands?_ Geralt rolled his eyes as he leant against the car bonnet, amused at the contrast.

Vesemir stood then on stiff legs, remembering himself and thinking it fair that there would be no stealing Ciri's attention away for now.

"You must be Miss Yennefer," He greeted as Yen made her way around from the other side of the vehicle, stepping towards Geralt. Vesemir tipped his hat in her direction, before thinking better of it, removing it completely before clutching it against his chest, holding out his free hand in greeting. It was about as formal as Vesemir got. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

“Likewise,” She said, reaching out to take his hand.

She was calm, Geralt noted, and although he hadn’t expected her to be… _reserved_ , during the introduction, it made him feel lighter knowing that she’d melted to Ves’s easygoing charm. The older man had a tendency to be disarming, in a completely innocent way, when he was actually _trying_ to be agreeable.

_God, I hope they like each other._

* * *

With their bags relocated into the guest rooms, Geralt returned to the kitchen and the sound of docile conversation. The day had been leant to travelling, the first shadow of twilight beginning to fall across the sky by now. Ves had started cooking supper before they’d even arrived, the older man enticing Yen towards the kitchen asking about the recent promotion Geralt had been gushing about over the phone a few days ago.

Their discussion had turned to herbs now, Geralt noted as he found them, before leaning against the doorframe. It was probably beyond Vesemir comprehension, but he nodded along to Yen’s suggestions, happy to let her add pinches, then spoonfuls of rosemary and something else Geralt couldn’t identify to the stew that was simmering over a dull flame.

Ciri appeared at Geralt’s side then, he felt her tug on his sleeve - a reminder. He gave her a small nod of acknowledgement before turning back to the other two.

“Ciri would like to know how many animals you have here,” Geralt asked, as they’d prepared.

This shyness wasn’t worrying - he got the sense Ciri was trying to work out who Vesemir was to her. _This would be so much easier,_ Geralt thought, _if it weren’t such a tangled mess_. Perhaps it would have been simpler if Geralt had actually referred to Ves as his father while she could hear, but it had proved a frustratingly hard thing to verbalise. How had Ciri done it so easily?

“Well... you know, I don’t think I’ve ever counted,” Ves admitted, rubbing his chin before glancing one eye out the window for a moment at the advancing evening. “But it’s about time those chickens went in for the night,” He turned to Ciri. “Perhaps you’d like to help me?”

Ciri nodded, pulling in a silent gasp of excitement as her hand reached for Vesemir’s, hesitation entirely absent, before tugging him towards the front door.

 _See,_ Geralt told himself, a smile warming his face, _nothing to worry about._

* * *

There were twelve. They counted together, Ciri adorably muddling the numbers a few times as she looked down at her fingers, starting again. Nine hens, one rooster and two ducklings.

Ciri blinked at the two youngest, justifiably puzzled, as she watched them waddle devotedly after their surrogate, Mrs Honey the hen, through the door of the coop - happily wagging their tail feathers as they went.

_Ducklings?_

“Wrong house?” She asked, her voice squeaking in concern.

“Hmm?” Vesemir replied.

“Wrong house?” She pointed at them, all yellow and fluffy, before they disappeared out of sight through the hen house door. “Wrong house for ducks?”

Vesemir relaxed down onto the grass, content to let the rest of the hens retire when they were ready, the sun wasn’t quite settled for bed yet, and maybe he was allowing a little more time than was necessary. “Those two live with the hens for now.”

“Why?” She inquired, settling down beside him. Vesemir smiled.

“They, uh… hmm,” _How to explain?_ He scratched his beard before he began. “Sometimes, ducks, well… they don’t always make the best parents. But chickens - now, they’ve got more than enough love for everybody, so we move the eggs around and let the hens hatch them out, see?”

Ciri was frowning, but she nodded anyway, gears turning behind her eyes. He wondered if her brain was still lagging from counting.

“I am...” She started, sounding mid-way through a revelation. _Momma chickens can have babies that are not_ their _babies?_ “I am duckling?”

“Uh,” Vesemir stammered, a chuckle falling from his chest in understanding a moment later. _Smart, this one_. “Sure, yeah, I guess you are."

* * *

"You are a chicken!" Ciri announced as she burst back through the screen door. Yen had only been setting the table, so she wasn't sure what she'd done to deserve that, but it hadn't _sounded_ like an insult.

"Uh, I am?" Yen inquired, trying not to let the distraction cause her to drop a china plate on the floor.

“It’s a metaphor,” Vesemir interpreted as he followed behind the four-year-old, then he frowned. “At least, I think it is.”

* * *

They found themselves surrounding the glow of the fire pit after dinner, a scattering of wooden lawn chairs, blankets draped over laps and around shoulders. It wasn’t cold exactly, the warmer weather earlier that day had encouraged them into clothes that covered less skin, but with the sun leaving, that choice was being tested now.

Yen had retreated into an old hoodie, though truthfully the garment was Geralt’s - some varsity relic she’d adopted because he never seemed to wear it. The blankets helped too, and the fire was more for keeping the mosquitos away, Vesemir explained.

It was later than was justifiable for Ciri to be awake, but there was nothing droopy about her eyes as she sat nestled against Yen’s side watching the dance and flicker of flames. One of the blankets shared covering both of their legs. She’d slept through most of the trip, so it was probably fine, Yen had argued, and it _was_ a vacation - rules could wane a little if they wanted them too. Geralt had just shrugged, before claiming the chair to her left.

Vesemir was talking, a story of how he’d ended up with the ranch, and the wife that had been with him to farm it at the start.

“Moorhen,” Yen noted as he paused in his tale. “Like the bird?”

“Almost,” Ves nodded, something cheeky coming to life behind his eyes. “Mignole had a soft spot for the birds, odd choice, I know. But when it came to writing the name on the registry form, well,” He sighed. “I’d always been a bit of a clutz.”

Yen let out a soft laugh; it wasn’t just the fireplace keeping her warm.

Vesemir seemed lost for a moment then, memories turning his eyes foggy. “My Mignole was an interesting one,” He said, his voice as gentle as satin. “It was her decision to take on the kids. We had the room, needed help on the land, seemed to make sense - and she badgered me about it for months before we finally did.”

He made no mention about having children of their own, but Yen didn’t pry. Those questions had stung her enough times. Though they’d been absent for a while, she realised, looking down find Ciri snuggled under her arm - even the confrontation with her mother hadn’t left Yen as pained as it normally would have.

Yennefer smiled. Her hand moving to delicately brush a strand of hair back behind Ciri’s ear. The little girl felt heavier against her side now, limp, or at least getting there. _Was she finally getting tired?_

“How many did you have here?” Yen asked, pulling her eyes away and back to Vesemir. “Foster kids?”

“Five in all,” The older man told her. “Geralt was the last of them, most found homes after a few years but this one had stacked up such a bad reputation that none of the families wanted him. We used to joke he had ‘mischief-maker’ stamped all over his report files.”

Ciri suddenly bolted upright. The sensation making Yen wonder if she’d suddenly jolted herself out of sleep, until the little girl raised a pointed finger to something in the distance. “What that?”

All three adults followed her line of sight, Vesemir swivelling around entirely in his chair to observe a spot where the grass had been left wild and long. The light of a firefly swaying in a dance over the canopy of lush green.

“It’s a firefly,” Geralt explained, watching as another joined, and another, then a fourth.

Ciri was gone from Yen’s side in an instant, her feet finding the ground. “I want catch one.”

It almost sounded like a question, and Ciri didn’t move again until Yen nodded in encouragement, which felt strange in itself. But she’d never witnessed the little girl’s eyes so full of wonder. It had to have been one of the most endearing things Yen had ever seen, and she was aware that list kept getting longer.

Ciri returned five minutes later to the adults in languid conversation, a glow emanating from between her cupped hands, breathless. “I did it.”

Ciri proudly showed them each individually, prying her grasp open an inch for them to see, before untrapping the creature entirely and letting it flitter back into the air.

Her eyes were drooping now, Yen noted.

“Come on sweetheart, I think it's bedtime.” She said, standing, offering Ciri her hand to take.

Ciri didn’t protest, allowing Yen to guide her back into the house and toward the bedroom that had once been Geralt’s.

He watched as they left, his gaze snapping away as he felt something kick the foot of his leg that had been relaxing over one knee. It had been Ves, obviously, as Geralt looked over, who was clearly too subtle for nudging.

“So...” The older man said. “You asked her yet?”

Geralt rolled his eyes, but the gesture lacked any real annoyance. “There hasn’t really been… a right time.”

“Well, what is it you’re waiting for, the stars to align? I think the bugs did that for you, as omens go, that’s a pretty good one. Or maybe you’ve been waiting on my brand of approval or something? Because I got an old iron in the barn somewhere and I’d be more than happy to prod you with it if it’ll get your feet moving.”

Geralt cracked a smile. “So, do you?”

“Do I what?” Vesemir grunted.

“Approve.”

Ves stilled, contemplative in a way that seemed foreign on his shoulders. “You really came all the way out here wanting for me to give you a thumbs up?”

Geralt shrugged, he wasn’t sure if he even had an honest answer to give to that.

“You think that I’d be bothering you so much about it if I didn’t?” Vesemir spoke more softly now as he raised an eyebrow. “That pretty little rock’s been sitting in your pocket for what, a month now? It might forget it’s even an engagement ring if you leave it alone any longer.” Ves poked the embers with the toe of his boot, the flames flickering tenderly to life again. “Those two girls are the best thing that’s happened to you since you came here all those years ago. I’m no blind man, Geralt. You’re happier with them around, lighter. So stop waiting so darn long for the right time to present itself, because it’s not like you could actually stumble into a _bad_ one.”

* * *

It was a struggle to keep the little girl on her feet as they finished up in the bathroom, but Ciri was already dressed for bed so she was at liberty to collapse as soon as she settled down under the bedsheets, if Yen could even get her there. Ciri’s eyes were already half shut.

Yen placed the infant’s toothbrush back in its holder by the sink, sighing as she found Ciri’s drowsy arms reaching up toward her, asking. Triss had called it ‘uppy arms’, Yen was still debating how much of an insult to the dictionary that term was.

 _You’re nearly too big for this, Ciri._ Yen sighed, but didn’t argue - this was probably easier, she resolved, than walking down the hallway with an infant that seemed ready to trip over air.

So, Yen carried her, the little girl’s cheek falling against Yen’s shoulder as her head lulled to one side. Careful, as Yen nudged open the bedroom door, before lowering Ciri down on the bed, rearranging the blankets so the slowly blinking four-year-old could cozy into them like a rabbit in its warm burrow.

“Goodnight, Ciri,” Yen said quietly, locating Kelpie on the nightstand before nestling the teddy under the little girl’s elbow as Yen knelt on the floor beside. The infant’s eyes were quite soundly closed by now, her breathing slowing.

Ciri was almost soundless as she mumbled a sleepy reply. “Night night, mommy,”

Yen froze, but didn’t stiffen. Her heartbeat trying to make sense of the words she’d just heard as her jaw turned slack, something unguarded and warm starting to bloom in her chest.

There weren’t enough hearts in all the world to contain what she felt then. It was like her soul was radiant with it - almost painfully.

Yen forced herself onto her feet after a while of kneeling in the dark room, aware that if she stayed any longer she might wake the child again. Something heavy was building within her ribcage. And her hands, _were they shaking?_ She crept to the edge of the room, clicked the light off and slowly pried the door shut behind her until she was standing alone in the hallway.

Before Yen started sobbing.

* * *

Vesemir dismissed Geralt a while later. The announcement that Ves himself would be staying out a bit longer to enjoy the evening, followed by an innocuous wink, was all the nudge Geralt needed to leave. Rolling his eyes as he stood.

Yen was in much the same state when Geralt found her, though she'd successfully dragged herself out of the hallway and into their own guest room, a little hope for privacy while her eyes turned pink and her cheeks sodden. _Tears are salty,_ she mused, _why are tears so salty?_

She tried to hide it as he pushed through the door. Hurriedly wiping away the wet trails with the sleeve of her hoodie, and sniffing heavily in the hopes it would dispel the emotion in her chest. But it was a pitiful attempt to mask it, really.

Geralt’s feet paused as he noticed, a single thread of his mind contesting that perhaps there actually _was_ such a thing as a bad time, while the rest just stared, bemused. “Yen, what on earth happened?”

“Nothing,” She tried nonchalance, then grimaced at how false it sounded. “I’m fine.” At least that was true, maybe on a physical level.

“Yen,” He pressed, moving towards where she was perched with her legs crossed underneath her at the foot of the bed.

She groaned dismissively. “Ugh, its stupid.”

“I doubt that,”

She let out a shaky breath as he sat beside her. “You remember when Ciri called you dad?”

“Vividly,” Geralt nodded.

“So...” He watched as she pulled nervously at the cuffs of her sleeves. _When had she stolen_ that _hoodie?_ “Turns out, I’ve been upgraded too, I just wasn’t exactly… _prepared_ to hear her say it.”

_Oh._

A tiny piece of him had expected this to happen sooner; Ciri was besotted with Yen, and those feelings had been growing on a near daily basis, blooming past adoration months ago. But these things were quiet, Geralt was learning - not shy, but… modest, perhaps. It was in the unnoticed habits that had grown between the two of them, how a source of comfort had shifted, and how readily love flowed between words in conversation. In little, simple, things. And it was the changes in the three of them too, how easily he’d moved away from the concept that Ciri had so suddenly arrived into their lives, to now being the very meaning of it.

“In a good way though, right?” Geralt asked, his smile growing.

Her face fell into her hands, veiling herself, before she nodded meekly.

Geralt tried not to laugh, but the sound of it was soft anyway as it rebelled within his chest. _God, he loved her._ Why had this ever felt like such a challenge? This was easy, and he knew she wouldn’t be going anywhere regardless of her answer. Cir was her baby too.

“Are you, perhaps… prepared to hear something else?” He asked, aware that the question might sound cryptic.

She straightened then, slowly, blinking heavily to dispel the last of the dampness in her eyes. “As long as it’s not another emotional bombshell, I’m all ears.”

_Perhaps then, best not to speak at all._

He took the trip from the bed toward his suitcase in the corner of the room, rifling through the contents of a smaller pocket before he returned discreetly with it in hand, confusion creasing Yen’s forehead as she observed him.

He sat back beside her.

And then opened the box.

He heard Yennefer squeak, a muffled, surprised sound, before her eyes widened, darkened, fixated on the silver inside. She tried attempting a reaction but her words were stumbling over a jaw that had turned lax.

 _Should he be kneeling?_ They’d never been the most conventional, sure, but sitting on the edge of a bed didn’t seem nearly ceremonial enough.

“Don’t,” She grabbed his arm as he started to move. “God, don’t. Don’t you dare. I’d finally stopped crying you asshole.”

She felt his chest rumble in a laugh as she buried her nose into the crook of his neck. Being aware of his eyes while he’d been looking at her like _that,_ something a mirror to how Ciri had been watching the fireflies, was far too much for Yen right now. A heart could only unravel to threads so many times per day.

And then she hiccuped. It was her fault, she shouldn’t have been crying so much. But, god, if those two were gonna keep double-punching her for the rest of her life this whole mothering thing was gonna be a bitch. Her eyes were pink, her cheeks wet, and now her chest was making those stupid noises. She was an indubitable mess. But his face was beaming even wider when she pulled back, her gaze snagging over the ring in his hand for a long moment before finding him again. _Why now? Why now, while pitiful was painted all over her face, and yet he still wanted to propose?_

Though that was, she acknowledged, perhaps an answer in itself: they’d be binding more than just the two of them together if they did this. Maybe he’d been sure for a while, maybe he’d just been waiting for Ciri to be.

“Yen...” He began. His voice was so gentle, but her heart began thumping as loud as if he’d yelled - which she was keenly aware she’d never actually witnessed him do, he grunted a lot, sure, often hummed more than he gave a spoken reply, and sometimes just flat out refused to talk, but he’d never raised his voice for anything -

_God, shut up Yen, maybe leave the list of reasons you love him for later?_

It seemed she was no longer the only one having trouble, starting again as he took one of her hands, seemingly pacified by the contact.

“Yen,” He cleared his throat. “Uh, will you -”

“Yes, yes. Yes.” She rushed, half surprised she hadn’t tripped and said it earlier. Another hiccup returned, annoyingly, louder this time and making them both starting laughing inanely again - the sound of Geralt’s just as fond as Yen’s was unsteady.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” She nodded, certain.

She’d always been skeptical before, noticeably less so after meeting him, but she could understand what all the fuss was about as he joined the ring onto her hand. All thoughts of patriarchal bullshit dying in a wavered breath as she looked at it, silver and crystal against the canvas of her skin.

And then she hiccuped again. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

He was kissing her then, both his hands cupping around her face, thumbs brushing over the last of the dampness over her cheeks as he pressed his mouth heavily against her’s long enough to turn her breathless, which had probably been his intention.

“Better?”

Yen nodded, not caring to take the time to check.

* * *

The light had gone outside the window, the last firefly having waltzed merrily past the glass over ten minutes ago, she thought at least. Yen had stopped counting.

There was a glow in her chest, and it felt stupid, pathetic really - what sort of cheesy, fairytale ridiculousness had she stumbled into? But the feeling didn't fade, stubborn. Warm.

“Is there any way I’m gonna get you on a horse tomorrow?” Geralt asked from across the bedsheets as one of his hands played with hers, the question as careful as it deserved to be.

Yen dispatched the message on her phone, clutching the device against her chest as she looked back to him. “Absolutely not.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“It’s not like I’d put you on Roach,” Geralt reassured, as if that was really any reassurance at all. “But, I mean, Kaedwen’s practically a donkey, he’s not likely to do anything.”

“Likely?” Yen raised an eyebrow, playfull, before stealing another glance at her phone. It had, predictably, exploded like a kicked beehive.

“What are they saying?” He asked, no beratement at her mixed attention. This was the other half of Yen’s family, and with no care to tell her parents, _someone_ needed to know.

“Cally says ‘you’re welcome.’” She tilted the screen towards him, and the photo of the tortoiseshell lounging on her throne of Triss’ couch.

He caught sight of some of the other messages then, not that she’d been wanting to hide them. A few scattered curses from Phil, endearingly meant in all their obscenity, and a hundred exclamation marks in amongst the congratulations. It was chaos, but that seemed normal for them.

He watched as her focus returned to her friends, her face rosy, happy, illuminated by the light of it, as he wondered where chance would have led them had Cally appeared, chirping, outside any other window that white morning. Would they still have met? She’d only ever been a few floors away, but fate had withheld equally beautiful things from him before.

And how easy it would have been for them to miss each other entirely; in any other universe, to have passed in the hallway and been looking at a stranger.

_Well, that just hurt._

Yen glanced at him then, her eyes fluttering away from her phone as if sensing something within him had shifted.

She smiled.

And nothing had ever felt so totally and wonderfully grounding in his whole life.

~ Fin ~


End file.
